


kiss her like you want to

by UnusuallyNormal



Series: you look like hell [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, helpful gay kaneki, it's sad first though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnusuallyNormal/pseuds/UnusuallyNormal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is it?” Touka asks with a nervous laugh. “God, Yoriko, if you keep this up any longer it'll start feeling like a love confession.”</p><p>“That's because it is.”<br/>_____<br/>In which Touka's life is complicated, Yoriko doesn't know what to do, and Kaneki tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> sequel-ish to "his quiet, poetic existence." you don't, like, /have/ to read that one first, but some things will make more sense if you do.
> 
> i love touka so much ghghghjslakfs time to make her sad

Touka doesn't know when she had first caught herself looking. At the curve of Yoriko's neck, at the shape of her mouth – looking and pressing her hand to her own mouth and feeling her heart stir in her chest. It might have been all along. Certainly, from their very first meeting, Touka had been entranced by her. Yoriko was so _positive_ , so positive it was catching. Touka might not know how long she’s loved her, but she does – love her, that is, and it isn’t _stopping_.

But of course she knows well she won't be doing anything about it – about her crush. What could she do? What could she do, when she's a ghoul?

“Hand me that cup measure,” Yoriko directs, and Touka uncrosses her arms and takes her feet off the table to comply. They’re cooking together at Yoriko’s, as they often do on Fridays – well, Yoriko is cooking, and Touka is following orders.

“Here,” she says, holding out the cup, and Yoriko flashes her a grin.

She’s content like this, she supposes, watching the back of Yoriko’s apron with a small smile curving her mouth. So long as they can continue to be together like this, she’ll be okay. A relationship would be too much – they’d be too close, and she can’t have that – but this is fine. This makes her happy.

Yoriko's parents have obligations at this time, generally, and Yoriko had never liked to be home alone, so Touka keeps her company. It's a larger apartment than Touka's own, and the lights always seem somehow brighter here than at Touka's place, the atmosphere less heavy.

“Touka, can you hold the book open?” Yoriko asks cheerfully, pointing a wooden spoon in the direction of the aging recipe book. She doesn’t wait to see if Touka obeys – she spins around, and sticks the spoon into the pot. Touka sighs, but without irritation, and reaches over to smack back down the slowly lifting yellowed pages.

“Yoriko, this is literally just pasta with stuff in it,” she says, reading the recipe over. “I don't see why you need to look at this. I've seen you make way more complicated things before without any directions.”

“Bring it over,” Yoriko instructs, ignoring her. Touka again complies. The kitchen is Yoriko's domain, Yoriko's empire, and Touka knows better than to disobey her here. “I haven't made this in ages,” Yoriko explains, giving the still-stiff noodles a stir as she examines the ingredients. “I don't want to mess it up.”

“I don't think you could mess up _anything_ ,” Touka says, with a laugh.

Saying stuff like that … it always makes her cringe, on the inside. Touka has seen enough reactions to Yoriko's food to know what she says is _technically_ true, but she ... still can't taste firsthand how good Yoriko's food must be. She doesn't _know_ if her compliments are genuine. There's no way she could be anything but insincere.

“Aw, thanks, Touka,” Yoriko is saying sweetly, and Touka bites her tongue. “But! I still want to look at it. Ohhh, celery ...” She trails off, squinting.

Touka puts on an annoyed expression, but holds out the book for Yoriko to glance at while she tends to the pot.

“Hey, can you get out some spices?” Yoriko asks a few minutes later, dumping some pulverized garlic into the mix.

“Can I put the book down, or do you want me to stand here holding it and get the spices with my feet?” Touka asks dryly.

“Oh, put it _down_ , you sassy child!” Yoriko admonishes her, laughing. “Grab me the basil and the oregano.”

Touka obediently kneels down to the shelf upon which Yoriko's family keeps their spices. “The recipe only said salt, you know,” she calls.

“Mmm, I know,” Yoriko says mysteriously. “Get the _spices_ , Touka.”

Touka gets the spices.

“You're not following the recipe at all,” Touka realizes some time later, her chin hooked over Yoriko's shoulder as she stares into the pot. “What the fuck was the point of making me hold that book?”

“I had to know _where_ to screw it up,” Yoriko explains, smiling privately down into the bowl. The food smells horrible, Touka thinks, but a bit of Yoriko's hair is right next to her nose and it smells _way_ better, strong enough to block out the stink. “I’m experimenting. But I have to draw inspiration from somewhere.”

“Okay, genius,” Touka says. She'd quite like to slide her arms around Yoriko's middle and hold her as she cooks, but that's out of the question. “Do whatever you want. You're the star.”

“That's so sweet, Touka,” Yoriko says, tipping her head to press against Touka's cheek affectionately.

After some amount of time, Yoriko appears to determine the cooking is finished. It's still a mystery to Touka, what magical thing signals humans that the food is done, even after so long helping out Yoriko in the kitchen. Well, at least she knows which food is which now. When she'd first befriended Yoriko, she hadn’t known the difference between parsley and mango. Yoriko was horrified — _Have you_ _never_ _been in a kitchen before?!_

“Okay, Touka, it's ready!” Yoriko announces, setting two bowls on the kitchen table. Touka has migrated to the couch, from where she's watching TV.

“ _Oh Heinz,”_ the woman onscreen is sighing, holding a rose to her chest.

“What are you watching?” Yoriko wants to know, wrinkling her nose.

Touka clicks the TV quickly off. “Nothing.”

“Okay, whatever. Come into the kitchen! Food’s here.”

Touka scoots off the couch and stands up, stretching her back, and when she glances up Yoriko is looking at her. She turns away quickly when Touka lifts an eyebrow, her cheeks turning pink. Touka shrugs to herself and heads to the kitchen to take a seat across from Yoriko.

Yoriko sits, too. “Hey,” she says, giving Touka a little wave.

“Hello,” Touka responds. There’s an air of expectancy in Yoriko’s demeanor. Touka reaches for her chopsticks, raising her eyebrows. She waits for Yoriko to do the same, but she just sits there, her hands in her lap. “Um, aren't you going to eat?” Touka asks.

“I want you to eat first!” Yoriko blurts. “If – if that’s okay.”

“Before you?” Touka asks, her mouth opening. “Are you sure?” She’s … a little dumbfounded. Yoriko is so insecure about her cooking. Letting Touka eat first is a huge sign of trust, coming from her.

“Mhmm! I mean ... I kind of made this meal for you.” Yoriko looks down, blushing. “I wanted to make something new, and you were coming over anyway – i-it’s not really a big deal …!” She waves her hands, dismissing the significance of the gesture, but Touka knows Yoriko well enough to see through that. It _is_ a big deal. Cooking is important to Yoriko, perhaps the most important thing, and letting Touka in on it means, of course, that Touka is important to her too.

“Yoriko ... um, thank you,” she says. She's touched. She really is. But at the same time, lead is gathering in the pit of her stomach. She feels so … dishonest. She knows, in her head, that there’s nothing she can do except lie, but –

It’s another reason why she can never act on her feelings for Yoriko. Whenever they’re together, she always has something to hide. They can never trust each other completely.

But there’s no time to brood now. Touka lifts her chopsticks, watching Yoriko’s face out of the corner of her eye. This is such a nice gesture. Touka is honored. She focuses on that feeling as she dips her chopsticks into the bowl and lifts out a few noodles.

They feel slimy and taste awful, but Touka closes her eyes, pretending to love them. “Wow, Yoriko,” she says, when she swallows. “Really good.”

“Really?!” Yoriko's eyes are shining. “You think so?”

Touka laughs at her surprise. “Of _course_ ,” she says. “It’s your cooking, after all. Try it for yourself. You'll see.”

“Okay!” Yoriko says.

They eat together at the table, the conversation going quiet for a moment. Yoriko casts glances at Touka all the while. Touka feels guilt gnawing dully at her. Of course she can't enjoy even this, this most simple of interactions. It's not like Touka isn't used to it, but she resents it all the same. Stuff like this is just another reminder — that she and humans are ultimately incompatible, that tragedy is sure to strike one day and send her from Yoriko far, far away.

  


* * *

 

 

The next Monday is an overcast day, rain threatening but not impending. Touka hates days like that. They make her feel melancholy. School that day had dragged on. At the end of it, Touka is more than ready to go home, and she bounces impatiently on her heels as she waits outside the building for Yoriko.

“Sorry I'm late, Touka, I —”

Yoriko looks ... pale. Nervous. She keeps fiddling with the strap on her bag. It's a bit odd, but Touka doesn't dwell on it for long. She takes Yoriko's excuse with a nod and falls into step beside her, yawning slightly. She just wants to get home. She outlines a vague plan in her head to go to bed early as she walks.

"I have so much homework," she complains, stretching her arms behind her head. "I hate this time of year."

"Mm," is all Yoriko says, looking distant.

"Fuck, that paper is due next week, isn't it?" Touka sighs. "I'm really behind ... What about you?"

"Yeah, me too."

Touka peers at her. Yoriko is looking at her hands, winding her fingers together over and over again. "Hey, what's with you?" she prods, giving Yoriko a concerned smile. "You seem really beat."

"Yeah ..." Yoriko says, glancing quickly up at Touka, and then looking away again, shifting on her feet. "Actually, Touka, I, uh –” She takes a deep breath, clearly trying to lighten her tone of voice, but failing. "I need to talk to you. Just for a bit."

"You can talk to me any time," Touka says, shrugging. "But okay. What?"

"... Not here," Yoriko says, and Touka gets the first inkling. "Walk with me a moment?" Her face is pleading.

They've almost reached the point where their routes home split from each other, and at the fork Yoriko pulls Touka aside. They make their way under the shade of a tree behind a small building, a place where no one from the street could conceivably pass by.

Touka stops. She eyes Yoriko warily, noting the way she bites her bottom lip. “What's up?” she asks, when Yoriko doesn't speak.

Yoriko tugs at a strand of her hair, a nervous habit Touka has always found endearing. She doesn't speak. She reaches out, halfway, maybe to touch Touka's shoulder, but then appears to think better of it. “Touka ...” she says.

“What is it?” Touka asks with a nervous laugh. “God, Yoriko, if you keep this up any longer it'll start feeling like a love confession.”

She expects this comment to relieve the tension, for Yoriko to laugh — but Yoriko just swallows, sets her shoulders, and raises her face to Touka's.

“That's because it is.”

Touka feels like the breath has been knocked out of her. _Take it back_ , her mind insists, _take it back!_

Yoriko doesn't take it back. She takes a deep breath, and holds Touka's eyes. “You're really important to me,” she says. “You know that. And I ... I really, really like you. I know it's too much to hope for, that you'd feel the same, but ...”

Touka still can't breathe. She stands there frozen, staring, mind racing – this changes _everything_ , she hadn't counted on this, hadn't even considered what would happen if Yoriko returned her feelings –

Yoriko has stepped closer, staring searchingly into Touka's eyes. Touka ... All of a sudden, Touka wants to kiss her. She aches to, _needs_ to, all her feelings for Yoriko rising up with her tantalizing closeness and gripping her with violent desire — and maybe some of that gets through despite her resolve to keep her feelings from Yoriko no matter what, because Yoriko makes a tiny movement forward and they're _so close_ Touka can feel Yoriko's breath on her lips and her fists clench and later she'll never know, truly, if she would have let Yoriko kiss her in that moment, whether she would have kissed back –

But Yoriko must see something else, too, in Touka's eyes, because she lowers her own. "I'm sorry," she says. Her shoulders hunch and her hand comes across her chest to grip her other arm above the elbow in a small, sad gesture. “I thought this would happen,” she says. "You don't ... feel like that. I'm sorry for bringing it up. I don't want things to be weird now, but –”

She backs away, raising her hands to cover her face. And Touka can only stand there, dumbstruck, her words caught in her mouth – wanting to tell her, knowing she can't. "Yoriko –” she blurts, as Yoriko crosses the edge of the shade of the tree. "Yoriko, I still – I still want to be friends with you!"

It’s all she can say.

And then the pain breaks out, clear pain on Yoriko's face, just as she smiles. "I'm glad," she says. She turns away, but looks over her shoulder at Touka. "I'm glad," she repeats, and begins to walk away, slowly at first, and then she breaks into a run.

She hadn't sounded glad in the slightest.

  


* * *

 

 

Later that night, Kaneki calls. Touka hasn't gotten anywhere with her homework, and the ringing of the phone is a welcome distraction. Kaneki sounds messed up, something Touka finds strangely comforting. Even if she feels like shit, at least she isn't alone. She meets Kaneki at Itori's and makes all sorts of bad decisions and for a while, she feels better, and then she doesn't feel anything at all.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yells "IT'S FINE" as i squeeze my eyes shut and hit the post button
> 
> lol sorry guys this is way later than expected ... it's not like i haven't had this finished but it's a matter of activation energy you see ... next week AP exams begin and i'm already a wreck
> 
> anyway thank you!!!! for your response and support and ahhh omg i'm so glad there are touriko fans Out There its nice to see you all

Two weeks later finds Touka at Anteiku on Sunday morning, serving customers alone. Kaneki used to work these shifts with her, but he’s gotten his schedule changed recently so that he doesn’t have to work weekend mornings anymore. (Touka hates to think of what that says about his new evening plans.)

She'd had a very strange dream last night. She had been pursuing a ghoul investigator, but for some reason, it was the investigator and not herself who wore a mask. When she’d caught up and ripped the mask away, Yoriko's face had stared back at her. She’d killed the investigator without another thought, and only after it was at her feet, bleeding out into the street, did she find that the face she saw had just been another mask. The relief was strong enough to wake her. When she opened her eyes she realized she had been crying.

"Touka, dear," she hears, and she shakes herself, noticing she's been staring off into the distance for a while now with a clean cup suspended in her hand. From the concern in the manager's voice, this isn't the first time he's called her name.

"Oh – yeah?" she says, quickly setting down the cup and reaching for the order she's supposed to be filling.

Yoshimura waits until she's finished serving the customer, and then he hands her a mug of coffee. "This one is for you," he says, smiling his genial smile.

Touka looks in surprise at the coffee cup in her hand. Kindness. She blinks for a moment. Then she lifts it to her mouth, draining the whole scalding thing in one gulp. "Thanks," she says.

Yoshimura peers at her. "Touka ..." he says. “Are you sure you've been ... getting enough sleep?”

Touka knows that's manager-code for _you_ _look like hell_. “No,” she tells him. She forces herself to relax, her face to smile. “I've been studying a lot lately,” she explains. “I ought to try to get to sleep more, though, you're right.”

The manager nods, his kind eyes shrewd. “Let me know if there's anything I can help you with,” he says.

And _that's_ manager-code for _tell me about your problems_. She appreciates it, but no thanks. "All right," is all she says, and Yoshimura nods, making his retreat to the back of the shop.

Touka is cleaning dishes when Kaneki finally decides to grace them with his presence. He looks cheery as usual, and, also as usual, is cemented to his boyfriend's side. Touka doesn't return his wave.

She hates herself for the bitterness she feels at the sight of the two of them. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so obviously _together_ , so all _over_ each other, _all_ the time, looking so _goddamn_ in _love_. It's impossible to ignore it. And maybe she ought to be happy for them, but as it is, she feels somehow ... cheated.

They had once been in the same situation, and Touka remembers thinking then that even if she couldn't have … what she wants … then one of her few consolations was her solidarity with him. But somehow, for some reason, Kaneki had actually acted on his feelings. He had found happiness with that sunshine boy of his. And it makes Touka _pissed off_.

She wants to yell at him, at Kaneki, wants to insist that he understand how _irresponsible_ he's being – because he can't _have_ that happiness, it can't last, and when everything blows up they're going to end up worse off than ever before, and Touka will have to deal with Kaneki after the fallout. They're ghouls, and they can't live without hurting the people they love. Humans are off-limits. Touka knows this.

But watching Kaneki so happy ... it's not just good-willed concern she feels. She can't help thinking, in the part of herself that's still weak and emotional, that if _she_ can't have that, he shouldn't, either. And if he _can_ have that ...

She's jealous of him, is what it is.

  
  


**

  
  


Yoriko stands outside Touka’s door later that afternoon, heart in her throat. Once she would have waited for Touka to answer her knock in excited anticipation. Now it's nervousness that makes her pulse race.

The two of them have typically spent their free time on the weekend together. And so Yoriko, wanting to stay true to their unspoken agreement to continue business as usual (to pretend like her confession never happened, that there was nothing at all to strain their relationship) had called earlier and asked to come over. Calling had been … stressful. Normally she’d enjoy it, enjoy talking to Touka, but lately, well … She supposes the nerves she feels are just more evidence of the new discomfort that’s fallen between them, the discomfort they’re trying to pretend doesn’t exist.

"Hey, Yoriko," Touka says, upon answering the door. Perhaps it's just her state of mind, or perhaps it’s really there, but Yoriko thinks the words come out of her best friend's mouth a little awkwardly, the cheeriness in her voice forced.

"Hey!" Yoriko replies. Because she has no choice but to play along, after all. "How are you?"

"I'm g-- oh, you brought food?" Touka peers at the dish in her hands with all the interest socially required of her. "Great, come on in."

Yoriko does, removing her shoes. “I always bring food, you know,” she says automatically, tucking the still-warm dish under her arm.

Touka nods a few times, shifting on her feet and crossing her arms across her chest in that way of hers that makes her forearms look nice. As soon as she thinks the thought, Yoriko regrets it. It's not as if Touka could _know_ , but it's not … her thought to think. Guilt sinks in her stomach and when she looks up with Touka she can _feel_ the strain in her smile. "Sometimes I wonder if you're only friends with me for my food!" she jokes, and then laughs too loudly; it's a bad joke and she knows it and it hits far too close to home why did she _say_ that …

Touka doesn't laugh, but she makes an effort to smile, and when she says, "That's _definitely_ not it," the firmness in her voice is real. Yoriko's pained laughter dies out and they regard each other uncomfortably for a few seconds before Touka, to her eternal credit, suggests she take the food into the kitchen.

It's a sweet pastry Yoriko has made many times before, but she has fallen into the habit of adding cinnamon and extra vanilla to the recipe and she privately thinks it tastes much better this way. She'd thought of Touka as she made it, wondering if she'd like it, half-convinced, as she always had been, that Touka has been lying all this time about enjoying her food and really she's a terrible cook ...

"Did it come out all right?" Yoriko asks anxiously, halfway through the food.

"Mm," Touka swallows. "Yeah, Yoriko, it's delicious."

"I thought it might be too sweet," Yoriko mumbles, fidgeting with her hands.

"Sweet is good," Touka says – and for some reason Yoriko feels suddenly as if her fears have been confirmed. There had been something like uncertainty in Touka's voice.

"You don't have to lie if you don't like it," she whispers to herself.

"What?" Touka asks around another mouthful of pastry.

"Nothing," Yoriko says. "So, um, what do you want to do now?"

"Dunno." Touka finishes the pastry, and Yoriko stands up quickly, wishing to forget the whole food thing as soon as possible. "Maybe, uh, watch TV? Or we could go out, if you don't think it's too late."

"Where would we go?" Yoriko asks.

So they just watch TV.

There hadn't been these silences between them before, Yoriko thinks despairingly. Or maybe there had, but – she hadn't noticed them, they'd been _comfortable_ , whereas this is just ... awkward. Every time Touka's eyes fall on her, Yoriko wonders if she's thinking about the _thing_ – even if they'd come to a silent understanding that they wouldn't bring it up again, that they would go on being friends, as they always had.

Doing "what they always had" feels like a charade, now.

  
  


**

  
  


Touka, keeping a proper space in between herself and Yoriko on the couch, also cannot focus on the television.

She can't help but think how tragically ironic the whole situation is. Her biggest problem right now is that the person she likes returns her feelings. How … unusual. She must be practically the only person on the planet to feel this way.

It really _would_ make things easier if Yoriko didn’t like her back. Before, Touka had been able to act comfortably around her, touch her shoulder or her hand, meet her eyes, without wondering what Yoriko might be feeling in response to her presence. Without worrying about what she _wants_ Yoriko to be feeling.

What does she want?

On the television, a car crashes through a metal barrier and explodes into a fireball. Neither Touka nor Yoriko would watch this sort of guns-and-violence on their own, but they’ve liked to watch them together in the past because they enjoy their implausibility. Somehow though, it’s not doing it for Touka right now.

Touka wants ... to live. That's her most basic wish. And just by knowing her, Yoriko poses a risk to Touka's safety. If they became romantically involved, that risk would increase, as well as the risk to Yoriko's own life. And because Touka has grown to care for her (deeply, so deeply), she doesn't want that either. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that they _can't_ be together.

The best case scenario is to let Yoriko fall out of love with her.

The thought turns her stomach. It's a familiar feeling. Petty jealousy, mixed with possessiveness. She doesn't want _that_. She wants Yoriko to be hers.

Touka rubs her forehead, turning away from the television to stare out the window. God. If there’s one emotion she hates feeling – more than anger, grief, or guilt – it’s this agonizing indecisiveness.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is?? happier?? and presents our guest stars hidekane
> 
> THANK YOU FOR THE 100+ KUDOS??? ON A LESBIAN FIC???????? IN THE TG FANDOM??????!!! WOW!!!

Yoriko wanders into Anteiku on Saturday afternoon almost by accident. “Oh,” she says, when she realizes where she is, but she can hardly turn around and walk away again, can she? She's here, people have seen her, she can't appear rude. So she stays in the entrance, inhales a rich breath of coffee air, and steps inside.

Her subconscious had brought her here, to see Touka – but for the same reason she'd come, she wants to leave. She thinks of Touka, but doesn't want to see her, can't think of what to say, can't imagine being able to look her in the face. She doesn't come here often. There's no excuse for her presence now – and hasn't she always had the vague feeling she's not welcome in this place? As if while at Anteiku, Touka was part of an exclusive group, of which Yoriko could not be a part?

She braces herself to see Touka at the counter, but Touka, praises be, isn't there. Instead she sees an almost equally stomach-flop-inducing sight — Touka's crush.

Touka insisted he wasn't her crush, but in such an emphatic and red-faced way Yoriko had been sure it was true. And after that moment under the tree — Yoriko had confessed to her anyway, but she'd already known, hadn't she? That Touka's heart lay with someone else? Kaneki, she's heard Touka call him, and seen his name in her phone.

“Welcome to Anteiku!” says the aforementioned boy, giving her a bright smile — and it's not in her nature to not smile back, so she does.

“Hi, um, Kaneki,” she says, uncertainty making her voice pitch upward at the end in a kind of question.

“Um, sorry — you're Touka's friend, right? She isn't in today.”

“My name is Yoriko!” Why did she say that? She doesn't like him. “And, that's okay — I'll just have some coffee, then,” Yoriko improvises.

“Oh, okay! What would you like?” the boy asks, perking up.

She tells him, absentminded, her eyes scanning the back of the shop and her mind wondering if Touka ever looked at these same walls and thought of Kaneki. “Done!” the boy says in a few minutes, sliding her foamy cup across the counter with another smile. It's harder for Yoriko to dislike him while he's smiling.

But it also makes the sinking feeling in her stomach grow sharper. It's far too easy to figure out what Touka sees in him.

“Um, actually, Yoriko?” Kaneki asks, fiddling with a thing on his apron. “Sorry if this is presumptuous ... but do you think I could ask you something, about Touka?”

Yoriko is taken aback. “Sure?” she says.

The only other customers are a pair of students who seem entirely focused on each other, but Kaneki leans over the counter and lowers his voice anyway. “You're her best friend, right? So I was wondering if you knew ... She seems, um, _distant_ , lately — I can't figure out why, but we're all worried about her.”

Yoriko thanks him mentally for saying _we're all_. It's a phrase that disconnects Kaneki from a personal, private relationship with Touka, allows her to pretend more effectively that he holds no more important standing in her mind than anyone. “Really?” she asks, biting her lip. “She's been acting differently around you, t—?” She cuts herself off, but knows by Kaneki's eyes that he caught what she was about to say.

“Do you know anything about that?” he asks searchingly. “Because, well, you’re her best friend, right? Is it – could it be something’s happened between the two of you?”

“It —” Yoriko can't tell this guy. Maybe anyone else, but not him.

But what he says next makes it clear she doesn't need to. “Hide – I mean, someone Touka and I know – told me he thinks you're in love with her,” Kaneki says, and the way he says it makes it clear that he agrees with — with whoever this Hide is.

Yoriko feels stricken. She feels _exposed_ — it must have been obvious, clear and pathetic on her face, for someone who doesn't even know her to figure it out. “My coffee's getting cold,” she whispers to her cup.

Kaneki flinches. “I'm so sorry,” he blurts, giving her a fast bow. Yoriko knows he doesn't just mean about the coffee. “You can go sit down — I'll join you, nobody's come by in a while anyway.”

Yoriko nods, and lifts her saucer with the coffee cup on top of it. She walks stiffly to a table, and hears Kaneki come around the counter to follow her.

They seat themselves across the shop from the couple, the better to talk in private. “How many other people do you think have guessed?” the heartsick girl asks, eyes wide with anxiety.

“Oh, nobody else, I think!” Kaneki rushes to reassure her. “Hide's particularly good at reading people — he sees things most people don't. I doubt it would even be noticeable to anyone else."

“Oh,” Yoriko sighs, but she's not sure she believes him, and it doesn't make her feel much better. She takes a sip of her coffee. It's cooled to the perfect temperature, and the strong flavor of it steadies her a bit. Coffee truly is a delightful drink. “Well ... you're right.” As if she hadn't made that clear already. “I ... I told her, a few weeks ago.”

Kaneki's eyes go wide. “Oh, really?” he says, his voice pleased. “Good for you, Yoriko!”

“Ye-ah ...” Yoriko says, eyes downcast. She's a little surprised by his congratulations. “It didn't go so well.”

“Hold on —” Kaneki looks concerned “— what did she say?”

“Nothing.” Yoriko takes another swallow of coffee, feeling the hot liquid slide down her throat. “I mean, mostly nothing. I told her — and then I left.”

“Why?”

“Well, she doesn't feel the same way, of course!” Yoriko is irritated, with this boy who has captured Touka's heart and he doesn't even seem to know it. “She likes _you!_ She's, oh, she's probably _straight_ ...”

“Touka likes _me?!_ ” Kaneki says, and he has the audacity to _laugh_ a little, as if the thought is ridiculous. Asshole. “Where did you get that idea?”

Yoriko had gotten it a while ago, when she had gone to Touka's and found him there — and oh, why had she ever encouraged the two of them?

“Look,” Kaneki is saying earnestly, “Touka is a good friend. But she doesn't have feelings for me — at least, not _those_. In fact, I'm pretty sure that she likes you back. Have you talked to her about it since you, well —?”

“She _doesn't_ like me back,” Yoriko says firmly.

“How can you be sure? Maybe she's just too embarrassed to bring it up?”

“No,” Yoriko says. “Touka's braver than that. Besides, you didn't see her face after I — after I told her.”

“You might have surprised her,” Kaneki says reflectively. “She's a reserved person. I don't think she's very good at expressing her real feelings.”

Yoriko's heart gives a terrible lurch. She elects to ignore it. “She doesn't _like_ me,” she insists. “Why do you think she does, anyway? And how can you be so sure she doesn't like you?”

“She's ... how do I put this ...” Kaneki cups his chin in his hand, staring into space. “The way Touka acts around you is ... _different_. She doesn't act that way around me, or anyone else. She's usually pretty grumpy around all of us at Anteiku.” He gives a little laugh. “But with you — I've never seen her smile so much, and I've only seen the two of you together for a short amount of time. That says something. When she looks at you — she looks _gentle_. Yoriko, I'm _sure_ you're very important to her.”

Yoriko feels her hands shaking a little. She takes another drink, but her coffee is getting cooler now and it's not nearly as effective at steadying her. “Do you really think that?” she asks in a small voice.

Kaneki nods. “Really,” he says. “And it's obvious that she's thinking about you, too. If it was only awkwardness she felt, she would act normally when you weren't here — but you should see her, lost in thought all the time. She jumps whenever a blonde woman comes into the shop.”

The last of Yoriko's coffee goes down in a too-large gulp that sets her coughing. “Are you all right?” Kaneki asks in concern, half-reaching to touch her shoulder.

“Fine,” Yoriko manages when the fit passes, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand — but she's not fine, not really. “Kaneki, um, do you honestly think ...”

The jingle of the door interrupts her. Kaneki jumps guiltily to his feet. “I have to go serve —” he begins, apologetic — but then his face changes.

It's a curious thing to watch. Yoriko blinks. People, as a rule, _don't look_ that happy in public. She turns in her seat to follow Kaneki's eyes.

It's a guy she's seen around a couple times, with bleached hair and a colorful jacket. “Hey, Kaneki,” he says from the door, also looking impolitely ecstatic, and approaches the table. He only appears to see Yoriko when he's a few feet away. “Oh, hey! Is this Touka's girl?”

“Yeah!” Kaneki says, not taking his eyes off the newcomer. “Oh, um, Yoriko, this is Hide. Hide, Yoriko.”

So this is the Hide guy. Someone with whom Kaneki gossips about Yoriko and Touka? Yoriko is perplexed — until Hide steps forward, closer to Kaneki than friends usually stand, and puts his hands on his waist and kisses his mouth.

Yoriko feels like she's intruding on something extremely private, when they pull away and look at each other. She presses her lips together and taps her feet, glancing to the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kaneki jump, and disengage quickly from Hide. “Sorry, Yoriko! Um, I think I forgot to mention Hide's my — my boyfriend.”

The _way he says that_. Yoriko looks back up and sees both of them biting back grins, eyes very bright. “Congratulations!” she says, heartfelt. “You seem very ... happy.”

“Aww, we've grossed her out,” Hide says, laughing. “Whoops. Gotta work on that holding back on the PDA thing.”

“No, no — you're fine!” Yoriko reassures them, standing up. “I have to go now anyway. But, um — thank you, Kaneki. For the coffee, and for talking to me.”

“No, you don't have to go,” Kaneki says. “I know we can be a bit — I don't mean to drive you away!”

“I don't want to interrupt you guys,” Yoriko says quickly. “And I _do_ have other things I need to do. Things to — to think about.”

Kaneki had given her back some hope. She wants to think it over, to weigh her actions and Touka's, before she does anything about it, but still. Hope. She smiles back at the couple as she leaves, giving them a little wave, and Kaneki calls after her, “Good luck with Touka!”

 

* * *

 

Touka closes the door to the broom closet with a passive-aggressive _thud_ , and Kaneki jumps. “Sorry, Touka,” he says guiltily, jerking out of whatever space-out zone he'd been in. “I'll sweep.”

“Good,” Touka says, passing off the broom. Today is the day both of them have the closing shift at Anteiku, which Touka normally doesn't mind, but when Kaneki stares off into space with that little stupid smile on his face and it's entirely clear who he's thinking about, she takes it upon herself to rescue him from his thoughts.

She wipes the counter as he sweeps, and silence fills the air. It's comfortable, for a while, until Touka's thoughts drift where they always do, and she feels the need to break it. “So, how are things with the boyfriend?” she asks, and then regrets it.

Kaneki's face does that lighting-up thing it always does when he thinks of him. “Great,” he says wistfully. “Really ... great.”

“You look disgustingly happy,” Touka remarks, and Kaneki gives her an odd look for some reason. “The way you two are all over each other all the time ... it's like you're newlyweds. It's gross.”

“Sorry,” Kaneki winces. “We're ... yeah.”

“What's the appeal?” Touka asks, honestly curious. “Of that. Of _touching_ like that.” _All the damn time_.

To her surprise, Kaneki appears to consider her question seriously. “You know, it's something I noticed, when I — when I first started liking him,” he says, thoughtful. “So I looked it up. Apparently, there are all sorts of psychological benefits of physical contact — it makes you less stressed out, and less afraid of things, and happier ... We —” he lowers his voice “ — ghouls, we don't get enough of that, I think. Haven't you noticed? We don't touch each other.”

Touka's mouth twists, and she scrubs the counter harder. Her father used to pick her up every day when he came home and whirl her around in a flying hug. He'd hug her brother, too. But now she doesn't have any family. “Touching leads to _caring_ , is the thing," she says, her voice hard. "And then _caring_ means that when there's _dying_ , there's more _hurting_. And _that_ wouldn't be very psychologically beneficial, either." Touka works her jaw, finding it wanting to clench. “How do you expect to keep yourself a secret from Hide, by the way? This _relationship_ isn't sustainable.”

Kaneki is quiet for a minute, and Touka almost regrets speaking. She might be bitter, but she'd told herself she wasn't going to rain on his parade. Then he says, “Is it better to be happy for a short while and be sad later, or never be happy at all?”

Touka frowns. “What kind of touchy-feely question is that, dumbass?” she gripes. “What do _you_ think?”

“I don't know,” Kaneki says, shrugging. “I asked you.”

“Then ... I would say it's better to never be happy at all.” Touka gives a lift of her shoulders, trying to speak lightly, but failing. “It's too much effort to care about someone and then lose them.”

“Hmm, I'm not sure that's right ...” Kaneki says thoughtfully. “I mean, I hear you. But ... I'm happy now, and it's ... I don't think I'd give that up. For anything. Even when I think that one day something bad might happen ... I still don't want to break things off. I can deal with what comes later, no matter how bad it is, just so long as I can have this now.”

Touka gives a skeptical huff, and all conversation effectively cuts off while they finish tidying up. Kaneki looks pensive as he sweeps. Touka avoids his eye.

“Done,” he says, putting the broom back into the closet. Touka herself is at the sink, rinsing out the washcloth. “Touka ...”

“Are you going to say something else dumb and emotional?” she wants to know.

Kaneki laughs self-consciously. “I was just going to say, contact doesn't just have to be between people who are in love.” He looks a little embarrassed. “If you want a — if you want a hug —” He holds his arms slightly away from his body, offering.

Touka rolls her eyes, laughing a little. “Jeez ... you're so awkward, Kaneki ...”

But he's got a sweet, hopeful face, and after a moment Touka crosses the space and fumbles embarrassedly in front of him until he takes pity on her and puts his arms around her. Her own arms don't quite know where to go. It feels weird to touch his waist, and her elbows get in the way. Kaneki laughs, and grabs her wrist, guiding her to place her palms flat on his back.

“See, you've gotten out of practice, Touka,” he says, repositioning himself comfortably and giving her a warm squeeze. _He_ seems to know what he's doing.

“I'm only doing this because I was curious about the psychology thing,” Touka mumbles into his shoulder.

“Is it working?” Kaneki asks.

"It's making me feel _something_ , all right. _Awkward_."

“Hmm.”

But it really does feel kind of nice, Touka admits to herself. They stand there for another moment — and then Kaneki whispers, “I think you should go out with Yoriko.”

Touka disengages abruptly. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I'm sorry —” Kaneki looks guilty, but he stands his ground. “She came in earlier today, looking for you — so we talked. She really cares about you, Touka, and I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I think you feel the same way about her.”

“You don't know that,” Touka snaps.

“All right,” Kaneki says. “I don't.”

They stare at each other, Touka with narrowed eyes, Kaneki with an expression as noninflammatory as possible.

“Her safety is more important,” Touka breaks the silence.

Kaneki gives her a slow blink. “Would she think so?” he asks.

Touka shakes her head, a bitter expression on her face. “If she knew —” she says, turning away. “If she knew —”

Touka can imagine so clearly the way Yoriko's eyes would change. The way Touka would change, in Yoriko's mind — she would know the truth, that Touka is a monster, that Touka absolutely does not deserve her love.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoy framing Touka and Kaneki as foils for each other, and I think they're characterized that way in canon sometimes too. I feel like the different way they would each answer Kaneki's question in this story is one of the most important differences between their characters in canon. (And then I ask myself, would Kaneki say the same thing, after the Aogiri arc? Would his answer change? Does he become more like Touka? That would make sense, given the circumstances that have shaped them ... lol whatever tho)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JUST WANT TO CLARIFY exercise does not “cancel out” eating unhealthy foods. yoriko is being facetious. however please still get exercise, it's v good for the soul and actually just about everything tbh

Yoriko can't sleep that night, nor the next. She can't stop thinking about what Kaneki had told her.

Maybe Touka _does_ like her back. They hadn't ever talked about it, after all. Maybe Touka had been waiting for her to say something ... maybe, even, Touka thinks she regrets the whole thing, and _that's_ why she hasn't brought it up herself. That was something that happened in dramas, at least.

In two days, Yoriko has resolved to try to talk about it again. In three, she's figured out what she'll say. _I need a clear answer_ , she'll tell Touka, calm as can be. _I can get over you, but I need to know for sure how you feel. Please don't try to spare my feelings_.

By the fourth day, she knows she won't possibly be able to pull it off. Her nerves are wound tight, her hands perpetually chilled and her fingers prone to twitching. She bakes a batch of cookies that afternoon and eats half of it all by herself. Then she regrets it, her stomach churning worse than ever. Why did she do that. That's so bad for her. Normally she'd wait through the sick feeling, but today she can't bear feeling like crap and guilty, too – so she decides to go for a run, to cancel out the sugar. Running warms her, clears her head, and when she returns home again (gasping, embarrassingly so) she feels a little calmer.

Calm enough to tell herself, firmly, that she's going to talk to Touka _tomorrow_.

She's so sure she will, in that moment – but she knows herself so well that she decides with conviction that there will be _no takebacksies_. Of course, once her heart rate has settled and her temperature cooled, she wants very much for there to be takebacksies. But she can't go back on her promise to herself now – she's staked her honor on it.

The next day, Yoriko is very nervous on the walk to school. When she sees Touka, she feels herself going nervous, probably acting strangely – terrified, suddenly, that Touka will see on her face what she means to say. Even though, well, that's the point, isn't it? For Touka to know? But not _yet_. Yoriko isn't ready. Now isn't a good time to say what she means to. There are too many people around, and besides, they don't have the time to stop and talk.

At lunch? Should she do it at lunch? Yoriko thinks about it all morning, but eventually talks herself out of it. Touka's always a little odd at mealtimes, though Yoriko doesn't know why.  Talking to her about this over food might have bad results.

In the afternoon they manage to ignore the strain between them for long enough to carry on a relatively long conversation. It's about ... their teachers, Yoriko thinks, though she's unable to focus on it, letting her mouth run on autopilot. They're still talking when they reach the point where their paths separate — and here, Yoriko recognizes her chance.

Touka is hesitating. "I should g–" she starts, and Yoriko can't have that.

" _Wait!_ " she bursts out, more urgently than she meant to. Touka freezes. Yoriko goes wide-eyed, but swallows her panic, with difficulty. "Sorry. I didn't mean to shout," she says, more quietly. "I just ... I still need to talk to you. About something."

She wavers under Touka's guarded, nervous stare. For a moment, Yoriko thinks she might bolt. But after a second's pause, Touka nods, and seems to hold herself less stiffly. “Talk about what?” she asks, her voice soft.

This is it this is it this is it. Yoriko forces another swallow. This is her last chance to back out. She almost does. But, her _honor_. “I wanted to ask you about what happened two weeks ago,” she whispers.

She still remembers the feeling of standing so close, of Touka's mouth nearly on hers. She isn't sure if she wishes she'd stolen a kiss after all – it would have at least given her something to remember, late at night …

“What about it?” Touka snaps — but she seems to regret her harshness, and her next remark is gentler. “You didn't bring it up again, so I thought …”

“That's what I'm doing now,” Yoriko says. “Bringing it up.”

She stares at Touka, aching for some sign, in her eyes … some evidence of emotion, of reciprocation. And there is some softness there, softness mixed with pain. Could she really ...?

“What do you want to say?” Touka whispers. “Maybe this isn't the best time to talk — I have to go, I have a lot of homew—”

She's going to leave, Yoriko thinks in sudden panic. She's going to _leave_ and then I'll never be brave enough to bring it up again, and she'll be _gone_ —

Yoriko leaps forward and grips her by the front of her shirt. "Touka," she pleads. “Don’t –”

Touka's eyes are wide and shocked, and her breaths come fast and shallow. Yoriko realizes all at once how close they are, how her sudden movement brought their faces right up next to each other.

"Oh," she says, beginning to release her. “I – I’m sorry, you should –”

She makes to step back, and Touka’s eyes … _change_. Sometimes, Touka gets these _looks_ , looks that make her seem strange, and dangerous. Sometimes, it occurs to Yoriko that maybe Touka is someone to be afraid of. But she can never convince herself of that – these rare moments of intensity only serve to make Yoriko more fascinated by her.

Like now. Yoriko can’t look away. The way Touka is _looking_ at her – she freezes, for an instant, and Touka does too – and then Touka reaches for her. A press of fingers under her jaw – tipping her chin up, and Touka is – is _kissing_ her.

Yoriko’s mind goes on hold. It’s what happens when a turn of events is this unexpected. It leaves her acting on blind instinct, and of course, all her instincts are saying is, _kiss her back!_ So she does.

Yoriko's fingers relax on the front of Touka's shirt, and a shock runs through her as she realizes she can feel the outline of the edge of her collarbone through her clothes. One of Touka’s hands moves from her jaw to the back of her head, curling around and under to lift her to Touka’s mouth better. Her fingers are hard, her mouth clumsy and firm. She holds Yoriko almost as if she’s afraid, as if she’s desperate to keep Yoriko from running away.

And then Touka is pushing her away. In an instant, her whole demeanor changed. “ _I –!”_ comes her voice, panicked, and Yoriko doesn't resist the push, doesn't push back, stumbles backward with shock written all over her face.

“Touka …?” she says. Her eyes search Touka's face, find her staring, hand over her mouth, looking like she absolutely regrets everything about this.

“I. I shouldn’t have done that,” Touka says, and turns away, shaking her head over and over. “What was I thinking? What was I _thinking?_ ” She bites off her words, and Yoriko's heart plummets, her stomach turning over.

“Touka, why …?”

“I can’t –!” Touka cries. Then she slaps a hand over her mouth. She shakes her head again. “I can’t explain,” she says. “I need – I need to …”

“I fucked up,” Yoriko hears her mutter to herself. "I really, _really_ fucked up. _Stupid_."

Yoriko draws a breath, but Touka is whirling back around. The air catches in Yoriko’s throat. Touka raises her hand, to gesture, her eyes wild – but then she droops. She looks ... defeated. "What _can_ I even say?" she says. She puts her hand to her face. "What can I even _say_ …”

She takes a step sideways, away from Yoriko. She pauses, looks back around. Takes another step. Yoriko's pulse pounds in her throat. She wants to say something, but she can’t think of what. Touka steps again, then again, more directly away now. Eventually, with one last, distressed glance at Yoriko, she breaks into a run.

Yoriko doesn't – doesn't know what just happened. Well, she knows one thing. Touka had kissed her. Kissed her like she _wanted_ to kiss her. Like she wanted _her_.

There's a lot going on here that Yoriko doesn't understand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the point where this story diverges drastically from my first draft. i'm not sure about it, to be perfectly honest, because I can't tell how realistic it is, but I think I like it better this way. the main reason for the divergence is the depressing factor – before, it dragged on and on, /agonizingly/, and after i wrote it i realized i hadn't particularly enjoyed writing it and that meant people probably wouldn't like reading it, either. so this way it's a lot happier. (there are other reasons, too ... but anyway)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screaming
> 
> i have rewritten this so many times
> 
> i have no idea if it makes sense anymore

Touka can't believe it. She'd _done that_. She'd actually ... actually ...

Kissed Yoriko. Just as she's wanted to.

What had happened to her self-control? What _possibly_ could have possessed her, made her judgment slip so badly she’d allowed herself to do that? Touka sprints nearly the whole way home, slamming the door behind her and pressing her back against it, acting for all the world as if she was being chased. _Don’t worry_ , she thinks to the invisible occupants of her empty apartment. _I’m okay. Just stupid_.

Touka, when things become Extreme, has the tendency to talk to herself. Thoughts are wispy, incoherent things, hard to pin down. Words allow her to see things with much more clarity. “That was a mess,” she says, after her breathing settles enough for her to form full sentences. “Why did I – why did I do that.”

She pushes off the door, swinging herself forward into the apartment. “Why?!” she cries suddenly, making her hands into fists. Then she makes herself hold still for a second, until her breathing settles. She walks forward again, veeringtowards the back of the sofa to trail her hand across the tops of the cushions. “It might have been sort of _her_ fault,” she considers, her voice steadier. “She did grab my shirt. Didn’t she know what that _did?_ ”

The sofa doesn’t reply. “No, no,” Touka mutters, turning away. “ _I’m_ the only idiot here. Of course it isn’t her fault.”

She goes over to the window and places her hands tentatively on the sill, leaning forward to look outside. She has a shitty view. A few dumpsters, some grass growing through cracks on the street. A fire escape. Mandatory for any apartment, if Touka’s going to occupy it. “She was just too damn scared,” Touka mumbles. Her hand forms a fist. “Made _me_ scared. I couldn’t –” _lose her_. She’d been caught up in Yoriko’s desperation, in her frantic, obvious need to keep Touka close, and Touka had panicked as well. Yoriko has a way of that, of catching Touka up in things.

It isn’t an excuse.

Touka leaves the window after another moment of gazing. Thinking about this is useless, since she can’t deal with it right now, and she doesn’t have _time_ for worrying. Firmly, she directs herself to _stop thinking about it and do her goddamn homework_. She has enough of _that_ to occupy her, God knows.

She sets up at one corner of her small table, gets out her supplies, and turns her pencil over in her hand. After a moment of thought, she gets up and turns a light on. Then she goes back to the table, opens her notebook, and gives her notes a cursory glance. Oh right, her calculator. Touka gets up again to get that out of her bookbag.

She doesn’t understand this stuff. She had been distracted during the lesson (thinking about her girl problems) and so her notes are partial, fragmented. With a sigh, she contemplates resorting to the textbook.

 _Yoriko_ is good at math. Yoriko could help her with this. Nishio had offered his assistance, once, if she ever needed help with math homework, and she’d laughed him off. She was fine at math, she’d told him – but the truth was, she’d known she had Yoriko. Now, she doesn’t, and she can’t go back to Nishio. He’d be insufferable. Probably make her lick his fucking boots, or something.

Touka sighs, and bends over the table.

  
  


She can’t focus. Predictably. Eventually, after realizing she’s spent the last hour staring off into space, composing conversations with Yoriko in her head – _again_ – Touka decides to throw in the towel. She shuts her notebook, stretching. It’s gotten late.

As she makes her way to her small bedroom, Touka feels that certain kind of stiff, cramped weariness that comes after sitting in one position for far too long a time. She hates feeling like this. Touka is the sort who likes to be in constant motion, who prefers action over thought. These exams have really been trying her damn patience. And she missed a lot of her earlier schooling, too, so she’s had to study _extra_ , to catch up …

Well, Nishio had done it.

Then again, Nishio had steered clear of humans during high school.

Touka lies back on her bed, turning off the light and rubbing her eyes. Ugh. She’d meant to catch up on the work she’d gotten behind on, but she hasn’t even completed the _minimum_ required of her for tonight. _And_ she’d accidentally kissed Yoriko. Today was a disaster.

But … isn't she a little bit glad, after all? (Touka thinks, as she begins to drop off to sleep.) Just a little, tiny bit? She kissed Yoriko. She _did_ it. Touka touches her mouth. Yes. With these very lips. A horrible mistake, to be sure, but also – _nice_.

 

* * *

 

Touka goes to school the next day with her emotions tightly in hand. She will be composed. She won't let her feelings get the better of her again, she's determined.

She has _no idea_ what she’s going to say to Yoriko.

In her desperation, she’d looked to countless TV dramas for a solution, but no scenario fit this particular kind of problem – or, no scenario that had an outcome that worked. An outcome that would allow her to keep Yoriko as a friend. (In the back of her mind Touka considers just getting it over with, cutting herself out of Yoriko’s life entirely, but her emotions rebel so strongly against that idea that she can't bring herself to think about it further.)

Maybe she could pretend amnesia. “ _So, Touka, about yesterday –” “What about it?” “Well, that thing you did …” “Huh? What thing? What are you talking about?” “Oh, okay. Never mind.”_

Right. That would _definitely_ work.

Touka grips the straps of her bookbag unconsciously tightly as she walks to the point where Yoriko would normally be waiting to walk to school with her. She wants to drag her feet, but the stress is making her rush, instead. Will Yoriko be there? Or had yesterday been _so_ bad, that …?

But Yoriko is there. Touka is almost surprised by the sight. Ever since yesterday Yoriko had dominated her mind, a memory-distorted source of anxiety. Here, small and blonde and real, she seems even more complicated than Touka remembered.

Touka pauses some distance away from her, not quite meeting her eyes. Then she realizes she needs to make a decision – is she going up to her, or not? There’s only one decision to make. She approaches.

Yoriko, her knuckles white on the handle of her brightly colored lunchbox, has her mouth pressed in a hard line – not a good sign. When Touka’s feet scuff the pavement next to her own, she looks up. She draws a breath. For a moment, Touka thinks she means to speak, but the breath is too big for that. Touka waits. Yoriko exhales, and then … then smiles. Sincere. “Good morning, Touka,” she says. The words are very precise.

“Good morning, Yoriko,” Touka echoes. She’s not afraid. She’s too badass to be afraid.

“Would you like to walk to school together?” Yoriko asks.

Shouldn’t Touka say _something_? Something about … the thing? She thinks for a moment, mouth half-open. “Yes …?” is all she decides on in the end. It sounds like a question.

They walk to school together. Touka can’t quite look at Yoriko, but out of the corner of her eye she notices Yoriko looking at _her_ , quite directly, several times. They don’t speak, but Touka gets the feeling Yoriko is working up to say something.

She doesn’t say it. Past the entrance to the school they go their separate ways like always – Yoriko with a little wave, Touka with just an awkward half-glance. Touka is left with a distinct sense of _what just happened._ That hadn’t been the way she’d expected Yoriko to act at all.

All through morning classes, Touka’s mind circles. She’s on edge, her leg jiggling under her desk, and in her bad mood she snaps at quite a few unsuspecting people who don't deserve it. Eventually she excuses herself, needing some air.

She goes to the girls’ bathroom. “You have to figure out what to say to her,” she tells her reflection. “Ugh, what is she _thinking_? I can never tell …”

A faint noise from elsewhere in the room makes Touka stiffen and spin around, but she ascertains it must have been the pipes after a quick sweep ‘n’ sniff. She’s alone. Touka relaxes and leans back against the edge of a sink, shoving her fingers into her hairline. “Why isn’t she mad at me?” she mutters. “Or asking me things? Why is she so _calm?_ ”

The bathroom floor doesn’t answer.

Because the clock does have that frustrating tendency to march forward at an even pace, morning classes inevitably end, and Touka has to face the idea of lunch with Yoriko. She still doesn’t know what she’s going to say, but she’s decided she’s going to come up with something. To end the painful silence. To resolve things – if she can.

They are creatures of habit. Touka meets Yoriko where she always does, and they go where they always go – this little corner of the outside courtyard just out of the reach of the shade of the school’s largest tree.

"How was your morning?" Yoriko asks as they walk, in that same, precise way.

"Fine," Touka replies, stiff. "How was yours?"

"It was okay," Yoriko says. They reach their usual lunch spot and Yoriko sits, pulling hers out of her bag.

Touka can't face eating today. Yoriko, for once, doesn't offer her anything. She eats, and Touka stares off into the distance.

Finally she says, “So, Yoriko.” Then she coughs. She’s instantly grateful to her body for picking this moment to cough. It buys her time.

“Hmm?”

Touka pounds her chest with a fist. “ _Uuh_. About –” she coughs again. Pollen? “About yesterday.”

Yoriko makes an amused noise. “You okay, Touka?”

Touka glares at her. “About _yesterday_ ,” she repeats, insistent.

Yoriko shakes her head, lowering her hand, but the corners of her mouth tug upward. “You don’t need to apologize,” she says, and she sounds almost perfectly neutral, but there’s an upbeat undertone to her words and Touka has no idea where that’s coming from.

“But I –” Touka can feel her face turning red. This is _important_. Why is Yoriko taking this so lightly? “You aren’t going to –?”

“Wait, Touka,” Yoriko stops her, holding up a hand. “Before you talk … I want to say something first.”

Touka swallows. “O … kay?”

She waits. Yoriko looks down, laces her fingers together. Takes a breath, lets it out. Looks up. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just –” Yoriko shrugs, spreading her hands uncertainly. “Touka, I – I don’t know how to say this.”

“You’re telling me,” Touka mutters under her breath.

“I’m so –!” Yoriko goes on. “I can’t –! I mean, I think … I understand. I think I understand everything.”

Touka stiffens. She stares at Yoriko suspiciously. “What …?”

Yoriko takes a breath, holds it, lets it out. “See, I thought you hated me,” she says. “I mean, I thought you were _uncomfortable_ with me, since I … yeah. But there’s something –” Yoriko scrunches up her nose, trying to figure out the words. It’s way too cute. Touka bites her bottom lip, hard. “I’m not sure if I’m right. But even if I’m wrong, I’m … relieved. Yeah. I’m relieved. You’re _not_ weird around me because of the _thing_.”

Touka can’t figure out everything that Yoriko is trying to say, but she got the _I’m-glad-you’re-not-homophobic_ part. “I … yeah, I’m not. I didn’t mean to act like I _was_ … You should have said something.”

“I did say something,” Yoriko says. “Yesterday. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly the _right_ thing, but it worked out, didn’t it?”

This is news to Touka. “It _did?_ ”

“Yes,” Yoriko says firmly. “It did. I … decided something. I would rather have you as a friend than not have you at all.” She stops speaking, and then her mouth moves strangely, and then she shakes her head. She composes herself. Her mouth opens again, more sure of itself this time. “Now that I know you’re not uncomfortable with me, I don’t have to be uncomfortable with you. What I said, what you did, yesterday … for me, it cleared the air. I think I understand you better now. I don’t know everything, not at all, but … you’re fine with who I am, and right now, I don’t need to know any more than that.”

In the silence after her declaration, Touka has one very clear thought. She’s hiding something. There’s something she isn’t saying. Touka knows it.

But this is amazing. Almost too good to be true, but she isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Are you _sure_ about that?” Touka asks, her voice not masking her disbelief. “Are you sure it’s … enough?”

Yoriko smiles, a secretive smile. “For now,” she says serenely.

“You don’t want me to explain myself?” Touka presses. She can’t believe _that_. If she was Yoriko, she’d be dying of curiosity. “I …”

“ _Can_ you explain yourself?” Yoriko asks.

She’s got Touka there.

Yoriko picks up her chopsticks again and finishes off the last of her lunch. Touka watches her blankly, still unable to believe this.

Then: “Touka?” Yoriko asks, biting her lip.

“Yeah?”

There is a pause. Yoriko clears her throat. When she speaks again, her voice sounds almost normal. “Did you get what our history teacher was saying yesterday, about the second wave of isolationism? I think I zoned out for a while, I missed some stuff.”

Touka blinks. “Uh … oh. Just a sec, lemme get out my notes.”

“Thanks,” Yoriko says. “History is …” She falters, then presses her lips together, and when she speaks again she _does_ sound normal. “I’m glad you’re good at history, you’re a total lifesaver.”

Touka attempts a smile at Yoriko's compliment, pulling her notebook out of her bag. “Here, I found it. Yeah, it’s not actually so bad, look …”

Pretending to be having a casual conversation feels odd. At first. And then it doesn’t, and then, as they walk back inside together, Touka realizes suddenly she isn’t even pretending. Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

That evening, Touka's phone buzzes a text alert. It's from Yoriko, she notices, picking it up – and then she notices something odd. She doesn't feel nervous. Well, she does a little, but it's not nearly the gut-clenching anxiety of before.

_Hey, wanna go to the park tomorrow?_

Touka _does_ want to go to the park tomorrow. Especially now that Yoriko's invitation is free from awkwardness, apology, excuse ... Touka feels tentatively hopeful.

 _Sure. When?_ she texts back, and the reply comes almost immediately.

  
  
  
  
  


  
  


  
  
  


 

* * *

 

_Touka likes her back._

Yoriko touches her fingers to her lips for a moment, before picking up her phone to tell Touka specifics. Touka likes her back. That’s something Yoriko is quietly sure of.

Why won’t she admit it? Why doesn’t she want to _do_ anything, if both of them like each other?

Well, Yoriko thinks. Well. Some people just aren’t ready for relationships. Some people don’t know how to express their feelings.

Some people have secrets, even from their best friends.

Yoriko has her suspicions. But for now, it’s enough to know that her feelings are requited. For now, it’s enough that she and Touka can continue their friendship, without either of them examining the the _other_ feelings between them too closely. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh this has been a really hard fic to write for a number of reasons; i keep having to scrap and redo things
> 
> i've never ... written femslash before??? well ok i've actually written a lot of femslash that i've never published bc it didn't feel right, and i think the reason it didn't feel right is because a lot of female characters aren't written realistically, which makes it harder for me to take them and fool around with them. even though i Am a girl and i Am a lesbian i still can't quite overcome the bad stuff.
> 
> most of the media i consume (or that anyone consumes tbh) is produced by men. ishida is ~~pretty good, but if you look at the number of male characters versus the number of female characters in tokyo ghoul, you'll still see a disparity~~ edit: terrible. touka and yoriko are basically the only two non-family female characters that have a close relationship with each other, and yoriko barely gets any screentime.
> 
> anyway, writing this has helped my brain and im glad im doing it. it still doesn't always feel right, which is why i have to keep rewriting, but it's happening. i guess im trying to say ... thanks for sticking with me? sorry if this is still unrealistic, i'm working on it?? good luck on your own journey towards smashing the patriarchy


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what happens when you get three hours of sleep, wake up, heavily caffeinate yourself, and decide you're going to post not one but two things today?
> 
> ... you get careless with your editing, that's what. warning: may be shit

It’s the sort of thing that gets better the less you think about it. Sitting next to Yoriko in the park that day, Touka discovers a new talent for suppressing unpleasant thoughts. Today, she tells herself quite decisively, she will enjoy herself. Today she will just go with the flow.

Yoriko has barely slowed her speech to breathe since Touka arrived. Touka would suspect her of babbling to cover up lingering awkwardness, if she didn’t know Yoriko better. She’s probably been dying for someone to listen to her gossip, and now is going to unload weeks’ worth of wild stories and nobody will stop her.

“... And then she goes, _oh I'm not mad, just … angry_. And I'm like, that's the same thing!” Touka tunes into Yoriko’s chatter late, but she thinks she gets the gist of it. Someone in her afternoon class, someone getting upset, someone disrupting the lesson. “Well I didn’t say that out loud, of course,” Yoriko goes on. “Don’t want to get dragged into it – they were scary. They stayed sort of civil for a while but then one of them started shouting and everyone is staring and the other girl picks up her textbook like she’s going to throw it and _then_ the first one is like _let's take this outside_. Let’s take this outside – like, they’re going to fight? And the teacher doesn't know what to do! She's just standing there, and I'm like, Sensei, are you just going to let this happen? Only also in my head. And then they just _leave_." Yoriko, at last, pauses for breath.

“Did they actually fight?” Touka asks, mildly interested.

“I mean, probably. They seemed pretty mad.” Yoriko is grinning, grinning that particular kind of self-satisfied grin people get when they share gossip. She casts her head back to look at the sky, curling her fingers around the edge of the park bench. “I didn't see either of them again that day. Either they had to go to the nurse or they got in big trouble. Or both.”

“Do you know why they were so upset?”

“Not really. The loud one said something about _telling her my secret_ and the quiet one said, like, _I did it for your own good_ , but I couldn't understand more than that.”

“Wow.” Touka looks down for a moment, and then, all of a sudden, she laughs. "Look at us," she says, half to herself. "Talking like this. We're just like normal girls."

Yoriko laughs, too. "You know, we _are_ normal girls!" she says. "I hope you weren't getting a superiority complex."

"Hardly," Touka scoffs. The opposite. "But anyway, that sounds like it was really weird to watch. I didn’t think people were usually like that at our school. _Do_ people get in fights often?"

"No, that was the first time I've heard of one," Yoriko says, raising her eyebrows. "It _was_ weird. I don't think anyone was expecting it."

"What about you, you ever been in a fight?" Touka asks curiously. "Before high school?"

"Me? No." Yoriko gives a self-deprecating laugh. "You know me, I never get into trouble. Have _you_ ever fought anyone?"

Touka snorts. " _Oh_ yeah," she mutters.

Yoriko gives her a surprised look, and then her face relaxes. "Oh, right," she remembers. "You said you used to live in kind of a bad area before you got here. What's it like, fighting?"

"It sucks," Touka says, in all honesty. "Being angry makes you feel shitty and then you hit someone and they hit you back and then you feel physically shitty, too."

"Oh," Yoriko says. "Then – why do it at all?"

"Sometimes you have to," Touka sighs. “Self defense. Or sometimes you’re just that angry.”

"Oh," Yoriko says again. "Were you … in a lot of dangerous situations when you were younger?"

"A few." Touka shifts uncomfortably. This conversation is getting into risky territory.

But Yoriko seems to sense her discomfort. "I see," she says. "Well, I'm curious, but I won't ask you anything more if you don't want to talk about it."

Touka looks up, to find Yoriko looking back, smiling gently. Touka, surprised by the gratitude that overcomes her, returns her smile. “… Uh, yeah," she says, blinking.

They sit together in silence for a moment, and then abruptly, Yoriko pushes up off the bench. "Hey, let's walk around a bit," she suggests brightly.

"Okay," Touka says, following her lead. "It's nice out today."

"It is!" Yoriko enthuses.

How uncharacteristic of Touka to mention it. But, she supposes, she's happier today. Happier than she's been in a while. She's still not sure how it could have worked out like this, but things are comfortable with Yoriko again.

That seems somehow ironic to Touka. Somehow, because of a kiss, their friendship is going stronger than ever. She laughs out loud a little.

"Hm?" Yoriko asks, looking over at her.

Touka grins back. "Oh, nothing," she says, and laughs again, for no reason at all. "Like I said. It's a nice day."

 

* * *

 

Kaneki is serving a crowd of university students when Yoriko pushes tentatively through the coffee shop door the next Saturday afternoon. He only has time to give her an apologetic smile along with her coffee and sandwich before he’s called away again to bring more cream and sugar. That's fine. Yoriko can wait.

As always, the coffee is top class, but the sandwich leaves something to be desired. Yoriko wonders idly if Anteiku orders its sandwiches premade. Those are never as good – always a little soggier, the cheese a little congealed, the lettuce wilted. Yeah, she thinks, taking another bite. Premade. She wonders why. It seems disparate with the quality of the establishment, and from what she can see they do have the _facilities_ for food preparation … so perhaps it's that they lack the staff?

She sets the rest of her sandwich aside and focuses on her coffee, letting the rich flavor of the blend wash away the food's unpleasant aftertaste. A few minutes later, she sees Kaneki coming over, looking a little frazzled. "Ah, sorry, Yoriko," he says, pulling back the chair across from her. "Busy time. How are you?" He smiles at her kindly, asking with his eyes what he doesn't say aloud.

"I'm ... good," she says, giving him a bright smile in return. "Better, I think."

Kaneki nods, once. Twice. "Touka has been better, too," he says carefully.

"Has she?"

"Well, of course, she doesn't tell me anything," he laughs, self-deprecating. "Not of that sort. She ... she kind of has this thing, about relationships ...? She doesn't. Want to talk about them." Kaneki blinks deliberately.

Yoriko, snickering, decides to take pity on him. "Well, nothing's official _yet_ ..." she confides, sitting forward.

"But?" Kaneki asks, a grin breaking out over his face.

"Mmm _mm_...?" Yoriko tilts her hand from side to side, her own smile growing giddily. "Getting there? Maybe?"

"Really? That's great!" Kaneki exclaims, bringing his hand to his mouth. "I _knew_ she liked you back."

"Well, like I said," Yoriko says. "We’re not there yet. But, well, you know ... so she might have kissed me once, but like, that was –”

"She _what?!_ " Kaneki squawks.

Yoriko reddens. "She, uh, she kissed me," she says. "I think it was an accident."

"An _accident_? How could she do _that_ on accident?"

"Like, I ..." Yoriko flushes redder. "I mean, she regretted it later, she made _that_ clear."

Kaneki is gaping at her. "Touka kissed you," he repeats. "On the ..." He indicates his own mouth with a circle of his finger.

"Yes," Yoriko says, touching her lips at the memory of it.

"And she _regretted_ it? No, she couldn't have." Kaneki shakes his head firmly. "She _likes_ you."

"I don't know if ... if that was why? Why she regretted it?" Yoriko says hesitantly. "I mean –” her grin breaks through again, and she bites her lip to hold it back “– I'm pretty sure she _does_ like me. A bit. From what I've seen."

Kaneki makes an odd noise and claps his hands to his face. Yoriko looks up, raising her eyebrows. She thought what he said sounded something like _"that's cute..."_

" _Anyway_ ," Yoriko says, shooting him a look, "I was wondering ... if you knew anything. About what Touka won't tell me."

This makes Kaneki go more serious. "What do you mean?" he asks, taking his hands away from his face and giving her a look of concern. "What makes you think there's something she won't tell you?"

They've reached the reason for Yoriko's appearance here today, and she finds she's unexpectedly sure of herself. "Well," she says, lowering her voice a little, "I've wondered for a while if Touka might have … some kind of secret. Something she's hiding – something big. It's just a hunch, the way she acts sometimes, it's … I mean, I don't know for sure, but I have this _feeling_. Anyway, if I _am_ right about the thing, then I'd wonder if, maybe, it has something to do with the reason why Touka seems so nervous about … having a relationship."

There is a long pause. Yoriko, watching his face closely, notes that Kaneki doesn't seem very taken aback by her odd declaration. Rather, he seems … thoughtful. He frowns, rubbing his chin.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Yoriko asks. "You know something about it?"

After another moment, Kaneki speaks. "I can't say _anything_ ," he says. His voice is so low Yoriko has to lean in to hear. "But you're right, there is a reason. I'm … working on it. I want her to be happy with you." He looks up as he says that, so she can see the earnestness in his eyes. "So don't feel bad, if … if it takes a while. It doesn't mean that she doesn't have feelings for you, it's just …”

"I know," says Yoriko. "I mean, I _don't_ , but – I get it. I'm going to wait, if that's what she needs."

Kaneki looks relieved. "I'm glad," he says. "I'm glad you understand that. It makes things a lot easier, believe me."

"I'm just super great," Yoriko says. She hesitates. Kaneki had looked, for a moment … a bit worried. "And …” she adds “... I want you to know, that whatever it is, it's fine. Whatever secret thing that's going on at this place, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to pry." She smiles. "Besides, your coffee is delicious. How could people who make such delicious coffee be up to anything _really_ bad?"

Kaneki looks at her for a moment, then gives her a smile so grateful, she's absolutely positive she said the right thing. "Yoriko," he says, "If you don't mind me saying so ... I can see why Touka likes you so much."

 

* * *

 

Touka hasn't danced in a very long time, but she isn't letting that stop her. She's at Yoriko's, and music is playing, and she feels like dancing, so she will.

Yoriko watches her from the kitchen, grinning. "You seem sunny today," she remarks. "I didn't know you danced."

"I don't," Touka says. "I used to. Back before Dad left."

"Well, you're quite good," Yoriko decides, after a moment more of studying her, and Touka smiles.

"Join me," she suggests, holding out her hands.

"But I'm cooking," Yoriko says. She waves the rolling pin in her hand.

Touka shrugs and twirls an imaginary partner. Watching Yoriko out of the corner of her eye, she makes her way around the living room, the music carrying her. Yoriko sets the rolling pin aside and sifts some flour. Then she picks it up again. Touka dances into the kitchen.

"Hey, stay out of my way," Yoriko says mildly. Touka says nothing. She hop-steps around the kitchen table and, changing pace suddenly, grabs Yoriko's waist from behind. "Touka!" Yoriko yelps. "You asshole! You made me tear the dough ..."

"You can fix it, right?" Touka says, unconcerned, and Yoriko shoots her a dirty look over her shoulder.

The song changes, becoming more upbeat, and Touka starts a sequence she'd learned a long time ago. It's odd, coming back to this old skill of hers. She hadn't been bad before, but now she's finding she has muscles where she hadn't used to, her movements more deliberate, forceful. Of course there's a lot she's forgotten, too, she thinks wryly as her hesitation over a step sends her to the floor. She hears Yoriko giggling at her, and pushes herself back up, flushing. "What do you think you're looking at?" she snaps.

"Looking? Me? Never," Yoriko replies.

A few minutes later, Touka hears the oven beep – to signify it's finished preheating, Touka remembers, and feels a rush of pride of knowing that, that very human piece of trivia. "Your style is kind of, like ... martial arts-y," Yoriko comments.

"Uh, yeah," is all Touka can think to say in response to that. It's what she knows best, after all.

In another minute she goes back into the kitchen again to bother Yoriko. "Toukaaaaa, I'm almost done, be patient," Yoriko says. Touka ignores her and positions herself close to Yoriko's back, so that when the girl turns around, dish in hand, she gasps and flinches away.

"Gotcha," Touka says smugly, reaching reflexively to catch the dish before Yoriko can drop it. She steps in, her hands covering Yoriko's, and Yoriko's eyes take on a different emotion.

She slides her gaze away from Touka's, her cheeks pinkening, and swallows. "No fair," she says, "that was too smooth."

And it _was_ , after all, because Touka has her pushed against the counter, her hands trapped, their faces close together, and it's just like what happens in those cheesy romance movies (that Touka absolutely would never watch).

Touka's eyes focus hard on Yoriko's mouth. The thought that she's entering dangerous territory occurs, but her mood is too good for it to feel real. She could kiss her. Kiss Yoriko, right now. It would only be a matter of crossing a few centimeters. She bends in a little, the dish between them pressing against her sternum, as if to keep them an appropriate distance apart – like a nagging mother, or a teacher at a school dance, reminding her _no, you can't_.

And, actually, she _can't_.

She remembers with a frown, jerking her head back abruptly. "I – don't know what you're talking about," she says. She means to say it lightly, but her tone comes out tighter than she'd intended.

"Um, sorry," Yoriko says breathlessly, shaking her head a few times. "You startled me."

"Yeah," Touka says. She steps away, removing her hands – with some reluctance – from Yoriko's. "Sorry. I didn't want to make you drop the dish."

"It's fine," Yoriko says.

Touka hopes Yoriko hadn't noticed her moment of hesitation. "All right, I'll just – I'll clear out," Touka mumbles. God, she's so awkward. "Uh, let you cook. Okay."

"Like hell you will!" Yoriko laughs to gloss over the moment, rolling her eyes. "Since when did you ever leave me alone? You must _really_ be in a good mood."

"Whatever," Touka mumbles, backing out of the kitchen. "You'd better appreciate it while it lasts."

She flops down on the couch, her heart racing. The memory of that moment they'd had sticks in her mind. How much had Yoriko noticed? She hadn't seemed to be upset by Touka's proximity – or by Touka pulling away – but that didn't mean she wasn't hiding her emotions. But no, Yoriko was the sort of person who showed everything on her face. Or was she? Maybe Touka had managed to upset her, or at least disappoint her, but she'd kept it hidden.

Her face still feels hot, and she presses the back of her hand to it. Thoughts of what she'd _wanted_ to do begin to intrude. Press her mouth to Yoriko's, shove the dish aside and pull her against her, kiss her, let her know _exactly_ what it is Touka wants –

This isn't helping her cool down at all, she thinks wryly.

Fortunately, Yoriko soon rescues her from her thoughts. "Okay, I'm done cooking," she says from the sink, soaping her hands. "No thanks to _you_."

"Cool," Touka says. "How long until it's done?"

"Twenty minutes. Hey, Touka, can you come over here for a second?"

Yoriko's tone is light, but Touka – her mind still stuck on the fact that she'd almost kissed her, again – immediately goes on guard. "Um, sure," she says, pushing herself off the couch and arching her back in a stretch. "What is it?"

Yoriko turns off the sink and reaches for a towel. "Just come over and sit down. I want to talk to you."

Touka was right to be nervous. She presses her lips together and heads into the kitchen, sitting gingerly in a chair at the counter when she arrives. There's still remnants of flour and other spilled ingredients from where Yoriko had been cooking. "Okay. I'm here."

Yoriko hangs the towel on the rack, and pulls up a chair opposite Touka. "There’s something I want to ask you about," she says. Touka studies her face. It's peaceful, calm – if she's planning to ask something emotionally heavy, she doesn't show it.

"Go ahead," Touka says warily.

Yoriko draws a breath. "So, I've known you for a long time," she says. "And I figure you know just about everything there is to know about me by now. I tell you everything, you know that." She laughs a bit. "But sometimes I wonder if ... if it doesn't go both ways. If there's something about _you_ that you're not telling _me_."

Touka feels – not as stricken as she had when Yoriko confessed her feelings, but still pretty thrown. What had she seen, to tip her off? How much had she guessed? To be able to voice it at all, she must be pretty confident … "I – Yoriko, I don't –”

Yoriko makes a kind of linear gesture in the air with her hand, smiling. "Touka, don't worry," she says, leaning forward earnestly. "I don’t need for you to tell me anything. I trust you, see? I've realized – if you're not telling me, then you must have a good reason. So I won't push or pry. I just wanted you to know that I noticed, and that …” She blushes suddenly, looking down. "I just. I get it. I don't want to presume anything, but I think – I _hope_ I understand how you feel. And I'm here, anytime. Whenever you ... _i-if_ you ever ..."

Touka doesn't know what to say. She swallows, a lump rising in her throat. Perhaps ... perhaps, for once in her life, she can be honest. Perhaps Yoriko has given her that. Old habits arise, urging her to lie, to try and convince Yoriko she's wrong and Touka is keeping nothing from her, but she pushes the idea aside. Yoriko is trusting her. Can she return that trust? The answer is obvious.

Touka reaches across the table and takes Yoriko's hand. " _Thank_ you," she says, trying to convey as much gratitude as she can with her voice. "Yoriko, I really, really appreciate –” She coughs. "Damn, that sounds so cheesy ..." she mutters, looking at the table. "I'm no good at stuff like this. At feelings stuff. But, I mean, I really ..." She looks up, to find Yoriko smiling at her. It's a delighted smile – a little surprised, a little hopeful – but mostly just _bright_ , bright and glad. "Oh," is all Touka can say.

"I think you're just fine," Yoriko says, giving her hand a squeeze. "Thank _you_. I know it must have been odd, me saying that out of the blue and all – but, um, anyway! The food will be ready soon. Would you like anything to drink?"

She’s moving the conversation along. Taking the pressure off, letting Touka know she doesn't need to say anything else just now. Touka nods, because she _would_ like some coffee, actually, and Yoriko laughs and comments on her coffee addiction, and Touka thinks, watching her shoulders shake, that she would probably do anything for this girl.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> entering the last leg of the story. maybe one, two chapters left? thank you, dear readers ...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the like weeks of radio silence on this fic. i went away and then i came back and then i was doing something else and then i realized (again) that what i had written for this fic didn't work, so i've been rewriting the ending.
> 
> i didn't refer back to the old chapters at all while writing this one, so idk, the tone might have totally shifted. and i also got some strange deja vu about parts of this chapter, so i'm paranoid i'm repeating things i wrote in earlier parts of this fic/the first installment of this series. you'll have to tell me if it sounds familiar so i can change it really quick & embarrass myself as little as possible

Ward meetings are a chore.

Every month, on a weekend, usually in the afternoon, all the ghouls belonging to Anteiku gather in the small back room of the shop for Important Announcements. Mostly, they’re opportunities for Yoshimura and sometimes Yomo to speak gravely about current events, offer nagging warnings. Don’t kill people, don’t eat more than we provide, watch out for doves. Nishio and Touka would commiserate about how fucking annoying it is to have to attend, but the two of them can’t normally have half a conversation without shouting at each other, so they don’t bother.

At least the meetings aren’t too frequent, Touka thinks grimly, dropping six cubes into her coffee and stirring them in with one of Yoshimura’s dinky little spoons. She sits on the couch, next to Kaneki, with Hinami squished in between them. Hinami used to like hold Touka’s hand, or Kaneki’s, but recently she’s become more independent. Both Touka and Kaneki are very proud of her.

“Has everyone had a chance to get some coffee?” Yoshimura asks.

It’s a rhetorical question. Kaneki and Hinami nod, while Touka just tips her cup to her mouth and takes a gulp. It scalds the roof of her mouth. She doesn’t flinch.

Yoshimura stands at the head of the coffee table with his hands behind his back, painting an unassuming picture with his apron and his wrinkled, kindly face. Sometimes Touka finds herself wondering how many people he’s killed. It’s always a bit of a disconnected thought. “Thank you all for coming,” Yoshimura says. Nishio grumbles audibly, but Yoshimura has a talent for selective hearing. “Now, as always, I want to begin with expressing our gratitude to all of you who have risked yourselves on retrieval duty …”

Touka tunes him out, taking another swig of coffee. More of the same. She could be studying right now. Instead, she’s here.

Schoolwork has been easier lately, with less worry on her mind, but she’s still got so much to do. Yoriko has been helping her a little with math, and she’s gotten history under control, and Kaneki would probably _love_ to help her with Japanese Lit, but she thinks she’s getting that too… Entrance exams are looming. She can’t _believe_ she has to come to this stupid meeting.

“... should not be very dangerous, but you might want to keep an eye out for them,” Yoshimura is saying, and Touka tunes back in with a jerk. That sounded important.

Yoshimura doesn’t look her way, but he clears his throat. “I’ll say that again, just in case anyone didn’t catch that.” _Fuck_ , Touka thinks. “We’ve recently had a few incidents involving rogue ghouls coming into this area. Our dove population is relatively low compared to other wards, so it’s to be expected. They don’t normally stay long, but they do sometimes take victims – which, as you know, only causes trouble for us. Although we don’t keep territories here, I would advise you all to try and keep your neighborhoods safe, at the very least. I will do the same for the neighborhood around Anteiku.”

Ah. Shit. That’s actually a valuable thing to know – although she doesn’t have to _like_ the information. Her mind, as it is wont to do, goes to Yoriko. Her brow, as it is wont to do, furrows with worry. Her small defenseless human. She will have to keep an eye on Yoriko.

Touka keeps listening for another few minutes, but when no further new information materializes, she tunes out again. If there is in fact any more useful info the rest of the meeting, she doesn’t hear it.

 

* * *

 

They really are out there after all, Touka thinks in mild surprise, hanging up the phone. Yomo had called to tell her that Nishio ran into an unfamiliar ghoul eating near his apartment – a woman with long, black hair and a black and white mask – but hadn’t managed to do more than scare her off. “Keep an eye out,” he’d advised. “We don’t know if she’s left the ward or not.”

Touka certainly wouldn’t want to find a ghoul eating near _her_ apartment. She’s selfishly glad it was Nishio this time – but it could easily be her the next, if she doesn’t take measures against it.

She starts making the rounds in her neighborhood in the evenings, keeping a sharp nose out for ghouls, but finds nothing. No sign of ghoul activity whatsoever – not here, not in the peaceful 20th.

Still, she’s got a bad feeling.

 

* * *

 

Yoriko has to stay after school today, as she tells Touka at lunch, urging her not to wait for her at the end of the day. Touka goes worried at that. "Okay," Touka says reluctantly. "How late will you stay?"

"Hmm, I don't know," Yoriko says. "I'm taking a practice exam thing, so I guess I'll stay as long as it takes to finish and go over that."

"Don't be too late," Touka says. "Walking around alone after dark ... There's been stuff on the news lately, about ... ghouls. It could be dangerous." She finds it difficult to even mention the word _ghoul_.

"The 20th ward is usually pretty safe, right?" Yoriko laughs it off, laying her hand on Touka's arm. "Sweet of you to worry, though."

Ah, the irony.

The call comes as Touka walks home, alone. It’s Yomo again. She supposes, as she picks up,  it’s a good thing after all that Yoriko isn’t here.

“Touka,” he says, his voice low, and Touka’s fingers tighten around the phone. “Favor to ask you. We’ve detained the ghoul – but we’re afraid doves might be close behind. Can you come to Anteiku and pick up Hinami? There’s still a chance they know her face.”

“Yeah, of course,” Touka says, in spite of the homework she has still to do, in spite of the way she knows adrenaline will wreck her focus for the rest of the day. There are more important things. “Where should I take Hinami?”

“Anywhere she’ll be safe. Please do hurry.”

“Got it,” Touka says, hanging up and stuffing her phone in her pocket.

She will have to run.

As she goes, Touka realizes, with a nasty, gut-wrenching feeling, that she doesn’t have her mask. She veers for a few steps, almost deciding to swing by her apartment to pick it up, but deciding that she can’t spare the time. This job shouldn’t entail any fighting – but something could easily go wrong.

Well, what can she do? Except hope she’ll stay lucky.

Fortunately, it isn’t a long run to Anteiku. A side road – then down a busier street, cars passing by close to the sidewalk, then away down a slower road again. Touka slows down within a block of the shop, her backpack tugging heavily at her shoulders. She’s barely out of breath by the time she enters and makes her way straight to the back of the store.

In the room in the back of the shop, the tables and chairs and couches have all been cleared to make a space, in the center of which lies facedown a ghoul girl Touka has never seen before. She is unbloodied, but she could have healed, and her clothes bear the rips that indicate a struggle. Her forehead rests against the carpet, her hands restrained by makeshift ties – ties which wouldn’t do squat to keep her captive if Kaneki wasn’t sitting, quite awkwardly, on top of her.

Around them, Yoshimura, Yomo, Koma, and Irimi stand in a semicircle. She struggles futilely, and Kaneki gently sticks a knee in the small of her back. “Sorry, miss,” he says politely.

“Ughhh … asshole … enjoying yourself there?” she groans, and sneers, twisting and craning her neck to glare balefully at him.

Kaneki blinks down at her. “I have a boyfriend,” he says.

Touka looks around for Hinami. There she is – coming down from the upstairs, pausing to adjust her sandal. “Ready to go?” Touka says, and the small girl runs to Touka’s side.

“Yes,” Hinami says, slinging a small bag over her shoulder. “Thanks for coming so quickly to get me.”

“No problem,” Touka assures her.

Yoshimura is setting a cup of coffee in front of the bound ghoul. Touka catches something about “Here at Anteiku” and “lots of benefits” as she leads Hinami towards the back exit.

“Who’s _that_ one?” the ghoul’s voice comes, loud and rude. Touka turns a little, and stares down at the ghoul.

She’s holding her head off the ground with great effort, retaining shreds of her pride in spite of her captivity, and Touka feels a rush of rage, of disdain – she’d interrupted the manager, and he was trying to offer her a _job_. It was more charity that she deserved.

Touka decides on flipping her off.

“Brat,” the ghoul spits in her direction, and Kaneki frowns, reaching forward to scoot the cup of coffee a little farther away from his captive. It’s the symbolic sort of thing that makes him a lit nerd. Touka doesn’t smile at him, but she softens her expression in his direction, and leads Hinami out the door.

 

* * *

 

The ghoul escaped not thirty minutes after Touka got Hinami away from Anteiku. Doves prowled the streets around the shop for the rest of the evening. If she’d been half an hour later, she’d have needed her mask, and it wouldn’t have been there. Hinami spends the night with Touka.

Once it gets to be suitably late in the evening, she texts Yoriko. Her friend would have been walking the streets on her way home at the same time as the escaped ghoul, a thought that makes her stomach pinch with worry. Touka is quickly assured that Yoriko had gotten home all right, but again, she gets the sense that she was lucky _this time_ , and it easily could have gone a different way.

 

* * *

 

The fortunate thing about the day of the ghoul capture was its Friday-ness. Therefore, even though Touka had gotten about as much done that evening as she had predicted, she has the next day to make up for the lost time.

She’s in the kitchen when Hinami wakes up, her notebooks already smeared haphazardly over the table, all ruffled pages and circular coffee stains. “Hey, Touka,” Hinami yawns, scrubbing at her eyes.

“Good morning,” Touka says after a moment, abandoning her train of thought. “Oh, I made you coffee, but it’s probably cold by now …”

Hinami frowns. “Onee-chan works so hard,” she remarks, finding the coffee on the counter and taking it over to the microwave.

The beeping of the machine as it finishes spinning the coffee coincides almost perfectly with the tap on the door, so Touka doesn’t hear it at first. But then it comes again.

Hinami and Touka exchange glances. “Go hide,” Touka says, and Hinami abandons the coffee cup and flees into Touka’s room. Touka rolls up her sleeves and stands up, ruffling her fingers through her hair. She’s an ordinary high school student, who has just woken up. She’s wearing an enormous sweater and sweatpants and has already had way too much coffee. She practices her annoyed teenager face on the way to the door.

“ _Yoriko_ ,” Touka says upon answering, surprise and relief mixing in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

The small blonde girl looks almost just as surprised as Touka. “Oh – so you _are_ home!” she says. “I thought I’d come over and tell you about the test, but I realized halfway here that you might have work.”

Touka opens the door wider for Yoriko to step inside. “Not today. There was a … a mechanical problem, at work, so they told me I shouldn’t bother coming in. Don’t know what’s up with that.” Touka sniffs surreptitiously at Yoriko for the smell of food, and is relieved when there is none.

“Well, I meant to bring you some breakfast, but when I thought that you might have work I was just going to stick my notes under the door,” Yoriko explains in a moment. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you.”

 _Well I’m not_ , Touka thinks. Aloud she only says, “It’s fine, I’ve already eaten anyway. Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure,” Yoriko says, and they go into the kitchen.

As Yoriko’s coffee brews, the bedroom door pops quietly open, and Hinami creeps into the living room. “Oh – yes,” Touka says. “Yoriko, I’m looking after a coworker’s kid, Hinami – Hinami, this is my friend Yoriko.”

“Hello, Yoriko,” Hinami says in her quietest voice, sidling over to the kitchen table and sitting down. “Do you go to school with my onee-chan?”

“Yep!” Yoriko says brightly. “It’s nice to meet you, Hinami.”

The girl nods.

“She’s _so cute_ ,” Yoriko whispers in Touka’s ear, and Touka smiles.

“She’s kind of shy around strangers,” Touka whispers back. “She’s homeschooled.”

“I’ll be nice to her,” Yoriko assures her.

Touka finishes with Yoriko’s coffee and brings the steaming cup, along with Hinami’s abandoned one, to the table. “Mm, Touka’s coffee is always the best, don’t you think so, Hinami?” Yoriko says. Touka finds herself watching Yoriko’s fingers as they curl around the handle of the mug, her nails painted with clear polish.

“Yes,” Hinami says, drinking. “Although Mr. Yoshimura’s coffee is also good,” she adds as an afterthought.

Touka laughs. “Hinami spends a lot of time around the shop, so her tastes are very refined,” she tells Yoriko. Yoriko laughs, too.

“Maybe you could be a coffee critic,” she suggests to Hinami. “Like a food critic, only you’d review different brews of coffee.”

Hinami smiles hesitantly at her.

“So,” Touka says, taking a seat next to Yoriko. “You said something about notes?”

“Yeah, I thought we could study together,” Yoriko says. “And I could tell you about the practice test, since you couldn’t make it.”

“Sure, that sounds good,” Touka says, and Yoriko pulls out a notebook and begins leafing through the pages.

“Here,” Yoriko says, opening the book and laying it on the table. She scoots in her seat to point to the page, bringing her shoulder to shoulder with Touka. “So it’s about two hours long, and it’s in three parts,” she begins, tucking her hair behind her ear. Touka follows the gesture, watching as, strand by strand, the hair falls back out and dips by her chin into a fine blond wave. Touka itches to smooth it back for her.

Yoriko’s talking and she’s missing it. Touka forces herself to focus. Two hours for the test, three parts, she missed what the first two parts are but the last one is the essay portion.

Hinami watches both of them, not speaking. She has always had a wistful interest in school, an interest Touka can relate to intensely. Once Yoriko is finished explaining the test, they turn to their homework, and the table is even more crowded than it was before with notebooks and binders and pencils. Hinami quietly gets up at one point and refills everyone’s coffee cup, which earns her surprised, pleased smiles from both of the high schoolers.

By the time Yoriko is gone, several hours later, Touka feels much better about the amount of work she has to do. She isn’t finished – not by a long shot – but she’s done enough that the rest seems manageable, now. Hinami has gone off somewhere, probably back to the bedroom to read. As Touka is putting the empty coffee cups in the sink, however, she reemerges and settles down on the couch.

“Sorry if we bored you,” Touka says to her.

“No, it’s fine,” Hinami replies. “Hey, Touka?”

“Hm?”

“Is Yoriko your _best_ friend?”

“Yes …?” Touka says, not sure where Hinami is going with this.

“Oh,” is all the girl says, and Touka wonders for a moment if she might be jealous. It could well be hard for Hinami, that all the people she has care about other people more. But then Hinami murmurs, “That Hide boy was Onii-chan’s best friend, too,” and Touka, a blush rising in her face, realizes what Hinami is getting at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weird chapter and i'm afraid it's not going to lead well into the climax but hmmm what can you do


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one... year... later...............................................................................................................................

Light.

Sunlight.

The pure sunlight of a cloudless day, yellow-green through the translucent swaying leaves of the tree crowding the classroom window, and it keeps drawing Touka's eye back to it. The schoolteacher’s voice has gone oddly distant, filtered and muffled through a layer of her thoughts.

“... the best variable to solve for here would therefore be _theta_ , and we can see here that it _can_ be related to _r_ and _l_ …”

The window pane’s inverse shadow slants across the desk, a yellow rectangle sectioned into four, each section dappled with leaf shadow. And in the middle of the rectangle –

“... and _there_ we have it, in terms of theta, and we’re integrating from what limits, now? Yes, Miyagawa …”

– sunlight shines through yellow hair so _well_. Makes it glow. Light on the curve of the cheek, the side of the nose, and the hair, straight and even and curving up at the tips and almost touching the corner of her mouth.

“... negative pi over 2 to positive pi over 2 is right, thank you, Miyagawa. Now, who remembers what we’d do to solve integrals that have …”

She is a silhouette cutout from the center of the window-shadow, unaware of her position and the sunpatch printing her outline onto the desks of those next to her. Her eyes focused on the teacher, the problem on the board; her mouth relaxed, her hand loose around her pencil.

“... wonderful. The squared-thetas cancel, and if you move the constants outside the integral, the equation becomes 1 over _u_.”

Something about her, sitting there, so still and peaceful and lit up, is somehow so striking. Touka can’t stop looking. She can’t stop looking. Isn’t everyone else staring, too? How can they not?

“Who can integrate that? Someone who hasn’t said anything yet. ...Kirishima. Can you tell us what the next step is?”

Touka jerks her eyes back to the board. She squints at the equation, clearing her throat to buy time. “Uh …” The answer doesn’t come to mind. “No, actually, I can’t,” she says candidly, and there’s laughter from a few places in the room.

“Oh, yes you can,” interjects Yoriko dismissively.

Touka thinks that maybe Yoriko’s effect isn’t limited to Touka alone – the attention of the room swivels to her. Maybe it’s because she’s in the light (the rest of the classroom is dimmed so the teacher’s projected slideshow will show up), and maybe it’s because she’s out of place here, a visitor from another class, a curiosity, or maybe it’s just because she’s Yoriko. If she grabs Touka’s attention this well, everyone else must be looking too – right?

“You were just doing this stuff this weekend. I saw you,” Yoriko says to Touka now. Confident, reassuring. No hint of embarrassment shows, no sign of discomfort at holding this conversation in front of an otherwise silent classroom. When she turns to look at Touka, smiling, the dapple-shadow of a leaf slides across the bridge of her nose.

She’s the center of attention, and she’s here for Touka. Her schedule ended up being odd today – some out-of-school test or seminar or opportunity – and rather than go home right after, she’d decided to stick around for Touka’s sake. Touka keeps her face composed, but the corners of her mouth want to tug upward, even though nothing’s really funny. She gives the problem another look.

“Oh,” she realizes. “It’s just the log of _u_.”

“Yes, exactly. Thank you, Kirishima. And thanks to you too, Kousaka. Now, if we substitute theta plus 1 back in for _u_ , we …”

She keeps catching herself smiling.

“And there you have it. The _R_ s cancel, and so does pi –”

She’s _happy_. Ha. When did that start?

“– simple, once you simplify. Haha, get it? No? Okay, I hear you, shut up, sensei, no one likes your jokes …”

Very rarely, it’s like this. Just being with her and liking her, it’s like this. It’s _good_ , it doesn’t suck, nothing wars with itself, everything forgets for a little while, and the good feeling has space to pour in.

“... apply this to the sorts of situations we’ve been seeing, like the …”

Because Touka feels safe, because Yoriko’s here when she isn’t usually, because the sunlight is hitting her face just right and she’s wearing that little smile and making Touka answer the teacher’s questions and waiting to walk home with her. Because of nothing at all, Touka is just happy to be here with her, happy to be in love, happy to cup her chin in her hand and steal glances and space out and try to pretend not to smile.

 

* * *

 

The homely interior of Anteiku glows out through the plate-glass front windows and touches the street, so that Touka feels like it’s welcoming her in even before her hand rests on the knob to the front door.

Inside, and into the back room to clock in, the loud, abrasive humor of ghouls allowed to speak freely reaches her ears. “You’re _so_ considerate. Keeping the prisoner _comfortable_ , what a nice boy.”

“I thought – I thought she’d be fine – her hands were tied –”

“It’s okay, Ken, dear! Every newbie makes mistakes. Don’t _cry_.”

“Yeah, next time, we’ll just keep you out of it.”

“We forgive you, baby.”

Touka makes it into the room just in time to see Kaneki, muttering something under his breath, turn away from the others and duck out of his apron. Irimi, Koma, and some come-and-goer Touka doesn’t know by name stand around him, grinning like hyenas. “Oh, Touka!” Koma greets her. “Did you hear about Ken’s latest triumph?”

“We were just congratulating him,” Irimi says.

Kaneki hangs his apron on a peg and turns, hot-faced, to face Touka squarely. “I allowed the rogue ghoul to escape last Friday,” he says, before anyone else can. “It was my fault. I’m willing to pay for my mistake.” He inclines his body in a neat, stiff bow.

Touka looks at everyone and rolls her eyes, then tousles Kaneki’s hair and reaches past him for the apron he’d just hung up. He rights himself, still red at the tips of his ears. “You’re such a formal kid, jeez,” she says. “Act your age once in awhile, it’s weird when someone like you goes all honorable and shit.”

Of course it was something like that. Touka doesn’t feel irritated with him – more resigned, and faintly amused. And, as she can tell, neither do the others. It happens.

“He’s adorable, isn’t he,” the come-and-goer says.

“Look, no one cares,” Touka continues. “They’d do worse than tease you if they did. Go home, I’m taking over this shift.”

“Yeah, go home, Ken-chan,” one of the hyenas echoes, and the others cackle.

“You go home too,” Touka says. “Pick on someone your own age, assholes. He’s just a kid.”

Kaneki groans softly and puts his face in his hands. “I’m older than you,” he mutters. The hyenas snicker, and Touka, after a moment, joins them.

She stays there, though, until they all clear out, before she turns back to Kaneki with a more serious expression. He winces in anticipation as she raises her arm – but she just gives him a hard smack on the back. “Buck up,” she advises briefly. “That’s some life advice. Don’t worry about things like keeping people comfortable. Okay? There’s no room for that in this world.”

Kaneki’s nose wrinkles, and he looks down. “I know,” he says. “I won’t be like that next time. I’ll be stronger.”

“It’s not a big deal, though,” Touka can’t stop herself from saying, feeling – yeah, sure, she feels a little bad for him. “Everyone fucks up. Just don’t do it again.”

“Yeah,” Kaneki says.

Touka turns away from him then, putting the apron over her head and flipping up her hair to accommodate it. She cinches the cord around her waist and puts on her customer service face. Kaneki is leaving, shooting awkward glances over his shoulder at her, and when he catches her eye he lifts his hand to wave. Touka waves back, tossing a “Goodnight” his way, and he looks a bit assured and takes his leave.

She follows him out the door and joins Nishiki at the counter, her eyes staying on Kaneki’s back just long enough to watch him step out into the late afternoon. “You’re late,” Nishiki grunts at her.

“Fuck you,” she retorts. Kaneki will be fine. It’s not her job to make him feel better, and anyway, it’s probably good for him to feel a _little_ bad.

Touka’s eyes catch on an incoming customer. “Welcome to Anteiku!” she and Nishiki chime, infuriatingly, in unison.

 

* * *

 

The coffee shop becomes a different kind of social hub on the closing shift. The day edges its way towards night and the streetlights come on and blue living dusk brings chattering crowds up and down the street and occasionally into the shop. People on their ways to evening meetings, events, performances. Students meeting to study in the couches in the corner. Athletes finishing practice looking for something cold; businesspeople taking breaks from over-cooled offices looking for something hot. A nurse, a zookeeper, several teenagers, countless couples. An assorted collection of people from all over the city funnel into Anteiku for the evening.

It’s still quieter than morning and noontime. At times, Touka and Nishiki have no one at all to serve and they drift to opposite ends of the space behind the counter as their heads drop to their phones. A hush falls over the room in those time, the voices at a low murmur, conversations dropping out until a close listener could pick up individual threads of communication.

Anteiku closes at 9PM.

The analogue clock on the wall edges its way towards that number.

Touka picks up the broom and begins the cleanup. Nishiki continues to tap at his phone. “Hey asshole, wipe down the counter,” Touka says.

“No point,” says Nishiki. “It’s just going to get dirty again when we use it.”

Touka hates that guy.

She sweeps the pile of dirt into a dustpan and puts it into the trash. Then she does a round of tables, collecting a check here and taking additional orders there. The clock hits 8:45.

The door opens and a party of three comes in. “Welcome to Anteiku!” Damn that smug look on Nishiki’s face. Touka is going to tear it off one of these days. The whole face.

“See,” Nishiki mutters as Touka sweeps icily past, depositing the party’s order slip into his hand. “I told you we were going to use it again.”

“Go die,” Touka articulates through gritted teeth.

Nishiki’s unwillingness to do his fucking job and help her close aside, Touka isn’t too annoyed to be here tonight. Anteiku always feels even more comfortable and safe after closing, once stray humans have cleared out and secrecy no longer needs to be carefully preserved. Someone, apart from Yoshimura, needs to stay at the shop after closing (in the unlikely event a ghoul needs help) and tonight, from now until midnight, that’s Touka and Nishiki. The quiet three hours are a good time to study, and they have unlimited access to the shop’s stock of coffee as well.

Touka has managed to keep up with the dishes pretty well throughout the evening. She rinses the last of the empty mugs in the backroom sink, watching the brown residue and black coffee ground specks swirl at the bottom of the white porcelain before the sink’s jet overwhelms them. She sets them in the dishwasher and returns to the main room.

“You should check on the tables,” Nishiki grunts, without looking up.

“You should eat your own foot,” Touka says, because she was already _going_ to but because Nishiki had to go and _tell_ her she doesn’t want to anymore.

The table by the window underneath the cool red-orange light fixture wants more coffees, to go, and they’ll take that with the check, thanks. Touka nods along absently and pulls out her pad – and it’s as she’s taking down the order’s intricacies that she happens to look up and notice, just outside the window, a strange shadow.

It’s difficult to tell for sure, since the light inside casts a perfect glassy duplicate of the scene indoors onto the window, but Touka thinks, underneath the superimposed illusion, she sees a real person just outside the window, looking in.

She squints and blinks and realizes she’s getting distracted and returns her attention to the order, and when she looks back again it’s gone.

Probably just a passerby tempted by the shop and trying to decide whether to come in.

And clearly, they decided against it, because nobody else does. On her way back to the counter, Touka flips the sign in the window to “CLOSED.”

It’s the last order she takes that day. The last of the customers clear out just past nine. When the door bangs behind the last one, Nishiki and Touka are left in china-clinking silence as the countless teacups packed side-by-side in their glass cupboards resettle.

“I’m gonna go, uh,” Nishiki says vaguely, making for the back room.

“Do that and I’m going home for the night,” Touka threatens. “ _You_ can take care of the shop by yourself for once.”

A floorboard creaks as Nishiki shifts his weight. He stuffs his phone in his pocket and frowns deeply, then lets his shoulders drop and pulls his sneer back on. “I’ll make the counters extra sparkly clean, just for you.”

Touka balances her platter full of dishes on her shoulder and pushes through the door into the kitchen. One of the cups leans against the pitcher, and when she swings her shoulder around it topples it. There’s a heavy sound and cold cream splatters Touka’s cheek and spreads over the platter in a thick, white pool.

It was a table of ghouls, then. Either that or humans who just didn’t like cream.

The light in the dishwasher room flickers and buzzes. Touka washes the mess off the plate and upends the rest of the cream into the sink. There is a tiny chip in the rim of the pitcher. Touka runs her thumb over it, its roughness catching at her skin. She sets it aside with the other broken porcelain of the day.

The light flickers again and stays off. Touka shuts off the sink and makes for the door, the sound of the dishwasher making her take another quick look over her shoulder into the dimness. She shuts off the unresponsive light, fairly certain that it’ll come back on at a later time.

Nishiki has most of the table-cleaning in hand when Touka gets back out. All that’s left to do is stack the chairs on the tabletops and run a mop over the floor. They get the front room in shape for the next day within a quarter hour, then retire to the back room.

Nishiki is first out, so Touka gets the lights off. For a moment, she can’t see anything, and then her eyes adjust and the view out of the windows becomes clear, dark but not as dark as inside, artificial light from the streetlamps and shifting shadows beneath and waving foliage.

In the back room she retreats to a couch and retrieves her backpack.

The sound of the clock overwhelms the next hour or so. Nishiki paces one corner of the room, still on his phone. Eventually he mutters something about Kimi and leaving, and makes for the back door. Touka looks up briefly but doesn’t care enough to stop him. He’ll probably be back, she assumes.

He isn’t, though, and after fifteen minutes have gone by she curses him apathetically. He really left. Wind gusts through leaves outside. Somewhere, there’s a window open. Touka almost stands up to close it, but doesn’t want to leave the safety of her seat.

It’s as her eyes start to droop and she goes to make a cup of coffee when she realizes that no one’s taken out the trash. She sighs, looking to the cup cooling on the tabletop. She’d better do it.

_That useless asshole Ni-shitty_.

The wordplay is enough to cheer her into action.

The dumpsters are in the alley accessible directly from the back door, the same door Nishiki left out of. It’s this door that’s actually the most important one to monitor this time of night; the door that a ghoul in need of help is most likely to use. Touka holds the bag a little away from herself and pushes it open, the spring creaking.

The wind blows into the alley from the street and touches her back. She looks up at the sky. The light of the moon messes with her night vision, the darkness of the alley in her periphery morphing into indistinct shadow. She drops her eyes back down and lifts the top of the dumpster, flinging the bag up and in with a flick of her wrist.

There’s a faint echo to the sound that the bag makes hitting the rest of the trash. A second crash. Touka holds herself very still, listening – but when she hears nothing, decides it was just her imagination. It’s just the wind, or from someone passing by (although it’s past 11PM now and the foot traffic has slowed to a trickle).

And the wind has died down.

Touka becomes conscious of the sound of her own breathing.

The back of her neck prickling, she moves back to the shop door, glancing occasionally over her shoulder. It’s all in her head, of course, but once she starts noticing that she’s completely alone at night in a very dangerous world, it’s hard to turn that part of her head off.

The creak-strain-click of the spring in the door as it opens sounds loud to her ears. She closes it behind her, the snap of the wood against the doorframe accompanied by her sharp, relieved breath. _Safe_. The light inside feels warm to look at. She can see through the dim hallway to the lamps she’s switched on, to the coffee cup cooling on the low table, to her spread of notes and books. Touka leans her back against the door and takes a slow inhale, exhale.

From elsewhere inside, there is a loud _crash_.

Touka feels her eyes flare up black.

“ _Well, where the hell is it? If there’s nothing – and you dragged us here –_ ”

“ _Shut the fuck up! You heard that, right?_ ”

“ _Heard what?_ ”

Someone is here. Someone is inside.

More than one someone, too.

Touka drops automatically into a crouch, creeping forward to the edge of the short entryway leading into the lit room. The sounds had come from beyond, from – from the main room, the darkened main room.

There’s someone in the main room. Okay. Okay.

What should she do? Fight? Run? If she comes into that room from the lit one, they’ll see her before she sees them. If she’s going to fight, she will have to make her approach another way.

_Fight? Run?_

Her phone is next to her textbook. She can see it, on the coffee table, facedown. If she creeps, if she does a really stealthy creep, she can get to it without the intruders noticing.

_Yes. Call for help. Then decide what to do._

Anteiku has wooden floors. And that’s all wonderful and natural and everything, but the thing about wooden floors is that they creak like hell, and Anteiku’s have had years to acquire new creaks, so right now Touka isn’t too fond of that design choice. She eases her feet across the floorboards, her sharpened hearing picking up each muted sound of her shoes on the wood. The ghouls in the main room have stopped talking, but she can still hear the sounds of rummaging. She’s certain they’d heard it when she entered the shop. But until then, they must not have been on alert: if they’d come in the front, they wouldn’t have been able to see her light, after all, so they probably assumed the shop was vacant.

She can count on them checking out the back at some point.

Touka reaches the table and snags her phone, letting out a breath. She casts a quick look around herself before she turns her attention to the device. There is the door to the room with the dishwasher, and there, on the wall farther from her, is the door to the main room.

Sounds of footsteps, fumbling – and a crash. Touka unlocks her phone rapidly with her thumb. _Hands, stop shaking_. Shit.

_To: Nishiki_ _  
_ _get yr Fuccking Ass bakc here theres trouble_

_To: Yomo_ _  
_ _nrrd backup aniteku asap_

Two silent texts.

Typing has drawn on too much of her attention, and she feels exposed, knowing she could have easily missed something in those moments. The back of her neck prickles as she looks up. She hears a sound from the dishwasher room. So they’re in there, too?

Yeah. And making a mess of the place, too. And you don’t just _do_ that. You don’t just come into Anteiku and fuck shit up. You don’t betray Yoshimura’s hospitality like that. There’s a reason there’s always someone around, _assholes_.

_Fight? Run?_

Touka stuffs her phone into her pocket. She’s glad she wore pants today.

_Fight._

 

* * *

 

Two shadowy figures pick through the main room.

The front window has been broken. When glass can’t cut your skin, a locked door isn’t a big deal in a shop with giant-ass windows. Touka, outside – and still to the best of her knowledge undetected, despite that door spring’s best efforts – keeps her back pressed to the brick adjacent to the broken window and cranes her neck to peer in through the break.

Yes, she’s pretty sure there are two. One very short, the other very tall, they move stealthily through the shop, opening cabinets and looking under things and over things. Searching the place. Touka has a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for.

But they won’t find it.

She can take on two, can’t she? At least well enough to hold them off until Nishiki and Yomo and whoever else Yomo brings shows up. But she could probably subdue them. Not to brag or anything but when she lived on the streets Touka was a pretty big fucking deal for her age.

Voices again. Touka stills.

“ _Look, there’s nothing in this room. We should move on_.”

“ _No. Wire said –_ ”

“ _Fuck Wire. Let’s look somewhere else. She’s probably –_ ”

“ _Voice down_.”

The discussion between the two shadowy figures inside the shop becomes indistinct.

Touka’s heart races in her ears. It’s one of those times where she can feel it if she just stays perfectly still, feel the rhythmic pounding of her life throughout her body. And also, deep beneath her skin, concentrated in a place in her back between and just beneath her shoulder blades, she can feel her fight responses flexing, ready. Her body feeds sustenance into the organ, which pulses in time to her heartbeat. She closes her eyes. Inhales. Exhales.

_Now._

_Now, now, now, now now now nownownownow –_

She bursts through the window. Her kagune explodes from that spot in her back, stretching to its fullest semiluminous lopsided wingspan and spitting fragments that strike before she even hits the ground.

Touka sees them more clearly now. The volley strikes, or some of it does, and as they whirl to face her – masks on, both of them – they flinch back, cut by the shards. She’s hit the tall one worse. It staggers, cursing. In the deep shadows inside the shop cast by the streetlights outside, the silhouette of the tall ghoul in its feathered hooked-beak mask casts a contorted, sinister shadow on the back wall.

The squat one rushes her, shouting an incoherent cry. Its mask is ridged and swirled and has almost a shine to it, like the shell of a snail. A thick bikaku kagune complements the image. Touka jumps sideways and backwards, her kagune flaring to give her a bit of lift, wanting to keep the advantage of range. She concentrates, and with a yell, she fragments off another volley of shards.

She can’t keep up the volleys, though, and both of them know it. Snailshell guy doesn’t avoid the shards, and a few catch him, badly, but he uses his momentum to carry himself through the attack and beyond the range of an ukaku’s practicality.

A much better range, though, for a bikaku.

_Shit_.

Touka uses her fist, sinking it into his stomach, and turns, whiplike. The tall birdlike one must be recovering, and she doesn’t want to get between it and Snail dude, but she can’t get backed into a corner, either. Snail’s kagune whips, and Touka jumps, up and in, contorting her good side and raking her ukaku across the side of Snail’s head just as she feels the slice and slick of blood at her ankle.

She hadn’t jumped quite high enough.

Touka lands badly, but on her good leg. There’s a brief second there, an opening, before she manages to get back up – but she’s successfully injured Snail quite a bit at this point, and he’s slow for a bikaku, so she gets lucky and he doesn’t take advantage of it.

Something long, curved, and sharp flashes down. Touka skids her feet clear, swallowing rapidly and blinking. _Shit_.

“It’s about time!” Snail growls.

The bird one is back, and Touka is swinging her kagune, keeping her balance. The strikes come quickly now, both of them attacking at once, and she’s parrying automatically, but she has no _space_ , in here is so _cramped_ , and her ankle stings. The cut isn’t to the bone, but it’s deep.

Bird-hawk-whatever girl is a koukaku, kagune stiff and curving like a talon. Touka folds her ukaku in around herself close, using her good side to limit the koukaku’s range, while dodging the bikaku as best as she can and blocking when she can’t.

They step forward as one, and she steps back. A table strikes the side of her thigh and she winces but doesn’t flinch away. If she can just get them _out_ of the shop … lead them away …

Her shoulder begins to ache, as it sometimes does when she gets into long fights. Uneven kagune will do that to you. She’s parrying, ducking, locking with the koukaku, breaking, Snail getting in a hit, regaining her balance, locking.

Grabbing onto a kagune hurts like fire. When Touka does it for the second time she thinks her hand might fall off. She shouts as she squeezes, the bikaku pulling through her grip, ripping her flesh, but she digs her fingers in and throws her weight the other way, crashing into Birdie with the full strength of her good side and pulling Snail off balance.

She lets go and jumps over them, clearing Snail and feeling the top of her head collide with a light fixture. She yells and her hand goes to her scalp, feeling blood, and she lands and whirls and her head spins and she sets her jaw hard until it subsides.

Snail is picking himself up, moaning. Bird Guy is approaching, trying to move fast, but favoring a leg, and the sight lends strength to Touka.

“ _Wire …_ ” Snail’s groans are resolving themselves. “Wire!” he coughs, and finds his voice. “ _WIRE!_ Where are you?!”

Touka tenses.

_Finish this._

She has to finish this _now_.

She jumps. Leaps forward. Dives, extends her kagune, the tip slicing through the leg of a chair, one of the same chairs she had stacked onto the table earlier in order to mop the floor. In midair she twists, contorting her body – so that when she lands, shoving Snail back into Birdie, she hits them first with the flat of her wing, crushing it into them and _shoving_.

And she concentrates – and she gathers her strength – and she fragments it, makes it shatter and explode outward, shards driving into the two of them, and there’s a double cry, two simultaneous but distinct exclamations of pain, and she feels their tremors, their hurt and their blood and knows even if they're not dead they’re as good as at least for the duration of this fight and she jumps off of them with her kagune outstretched and ready because _something else is here_ she hears it and she’s turning around and her eyes are grasping at the gloom _she can’t see anything coming in this light_ but she doesn’t need to look hard because the one who must be Wire is already diving towards her.

Wire catches her in the stomach with something thin, something hard, something sharp and hot and Touka feels herself rip, a rib breaking, flesh and muscle tearing open, and she hears herself cry out, an animalistic, pained sound. She’s lifted up, arcing, arcing and falling, back striking the edge of a table and knocking the wind out of her.

She sends a volley, blind, into the darkness. There’s a noise of pain. “An ukaku,” a voice sneers. “I _hate_ ukaku.”

The voice has a _familiar_ ring to it.

Although there’s no time to think about it now. Touka gulps air hard and gathers her strength and _moves_ , dropping down to the floor and grasping for the leg of the table and with a strain of her wrist she flips it forward and _over_ , so that the flat top of the table comes between herself and her opponent, and she hears the crack of wood as the ghoul’s kagune strikes it.

It’s enough time to recover. The wound in her side makes it hard to move, but she grits her teeth and makes herself do it anyway, back, getting her bearings, back, back to the left side wall of the shop, and when her back hits one of the booth tables it’s not a surprise – and, turning, splaying her kagune and firing off another round as she does, she leaps up onto the table – well, she leaps _over_ it, her feet barely touching the surface as she crashes out of the plate glass window and rolls into the alley outside.

Touka is in survival mode.

The summation of her injuries is enough to seriously impede her performance. Hell, this Wire person’s greeting blow would have done it on its own, even without the slice in her shin and the bump on her head and the – what else, she can’t even remember. The pain is present, but it takes second place to fighting and escaping. She’s healing, probably, so long as she’s got enough fuel to do it.

She probably shouldn’t have used fragmentation so liberally. What do they say about ukaku stamina? Something, something … anyway, ukaku stamina is shit, and there are a handful of dirty jokes about that, but right now Touka is too fucked to recall any. She has to retreat, has to give herself some time to recuperate. Is Wire coming after her?

Yes.

Touka rolls to her feet, and makes a soaring leap for the fire escape of the building across the alley. Up, up. There’s another crash from below as Wire emerges out through the same window Touka had, and Touka’s face twists into a grim smile of satisfaction at the confirmation of the pursuit.

It’s not as if she’s running away, after all. Just buying time.

The roof is wide and flat, landmarked by the occasional air conditioning unit or fixture. About seven or eight storeys up. And on the opposite side, a sort of extension of the building, an extra storey confined to one corner of the building. Touka sprints for this, feeling the air catch underneath her kagune and lifting off a little bit and jumping upward and grabbing the edge and pulling herself up, feeling her ribs strain.

The injury already feels old. Still tender, still painful, but only when she pushes it, and she can feel the flesh knitting back together and the crust of a scab. Touka spans the surface of the roof in a few quick steps and reaches the opposite edge – and without faltering she jumps, her ukaku lifting her across the gap to the next building’s roof on level with the one she left.

A glance behind her in midair catches sight of Wire, also in mid-jump, still on the lower level, several deep orange ribbony kagune arcing loosely through the air around her. A rinkaku, then. Touka had thought so. She looks away when she lands. Her injured leg handles the shock of the impact fairly well, but the cut still throbs, still feels deep. She will have to buy more time, then. Get farther away. Advance.

The next roof is four storeys higher. No fire escape this time: when Touka jumps, she clears about one and a half levels vertically, but she’s left to climb the remaining distance under her own power, catching onto a drainpipe and the surrounding brick and scrabbling and scrambling and clawing her way to the roof.

Wire, Touka knows, will cover the same height in half the time, using the reach offered by her kagune type to swing her body up and over the edge of the roof. On top of this roof, Touka chooses her direction quickly, veering towards the adjacent building with the most similarly-leveled roof. Her ukaku will give her an advantage in speed when traveling laterally, but not vertically.

She soars to the next building and lands well, a light skipping land that takes her halfway across the roof before her feet even connect firmly with the ground. She risks a look back.

Wire is there, but she isn’t running.

She’s on the same level, but the previous roof, and she’s just looking. Her mask on her face – a strange glinting mask, but Touka can’t make out any detail at this distance – is pointed in Touka’s direction. Touka skids to a stop, catching her breath. She folds her arms, and stares back at Wire.

Now that she’s still, she can feel her injuries throbbing in time to her heart. It hammers rapidly, a mixture of effort and adrenaline. Underneath it all there’s that light-headedness, that clench in her stomach, that urge to consume.

It’s a standoff. Touka can’t run from Wire, because if she does Wire may easily just turn around and go straight back to Anteiku. And Wire can’t run back to Anteiku, because if she does Touka will follow, and Touka would have the speed advantage then. The only direction possible is towards each other.

So it’s a standoff for now, and Touka is glad of it. After another long, frozen moment looking at Wire, she lets out a sigh and drops into a sit (concealing as much of her exhaustion in the motion as she can). That’s better. To rest. To recover.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Wire is approaching. Slowly. She walks to the edge of the roof, the edge closest to the one Touka stands on now, and stops. Bends her knees. And she jumps – jumps from a standstill, from a full stop, a powerful leap that brings her just barely across the gap but she lands without a stumble.

It’s a display of strength. A challenge. The corners of Touka’s mouth draw back in a smile – a smile which shows her teeth. From where she sits, she lifts a hand and crooks two fingers at Wire.

Yeah. She’s ready to get back up. Not healed, but she’ll hold. And, well, she wants this fight.

Wire paces towards her. Deliberate steps, measured and slow. Touka can see her mask now. It’s a bizarre, twisted-up thing, a chaotic wire mass tied up in no particular order or pattern. It covers her face from the forehead to the top of her mouth, completely concealing her features, but if Touka hadn’t known her from her voice, the long, flowing black hair would have tipped her off.

When Wire gets close enough, Touka pushes herself slowly to her feet. The ache in her ribs flares briefly, but subsides. “Nice of you to come back to visit,” Touka says.

Wire grins. “I couldn’t stay away,” she says. “Such hospitality! Your gang has a really nice place there.” She pauses. “Well, _had_.”

“You’re a shitty guest,” Touka says, sliding into a ready stance. “You know what’s fucked up? We would’ve welcomed you, if you’d just asked.”

The orange snakes of the rinkaku slither out from Wire’s back, and sway, rearing to strike.

She says, “I know.”

 

Wire is fast. She’s very fast.

It’s the shitty thing about fighting rinkaku – as soon as you’ve dodged one, another is coming right at you. Touka goes on the defensive from the start, jumping and flipping and sucking in her stomach to avoid an extension that snaps particularly close. Shit. Wire is _good_.

But Touka is also good.

She makes herself stay cautious about her volleys, but she gets off a few when she can, when she has a clear shot at Wire. Wire dodges sometimes, but Touka sees some of her shards slice cuts open and feels a grim sense of satisfaction.

Wire gets her sometimes, too. Little cuts, on the limbs or torso or back, not enough to do more than sting. Adrenaline and distraction render the pain insignificant. Concentration sets in. Identify, plan, react. It all happens almost simultaneously.

But Wire controls the flow of the fight. And gradually, Touka is getting edged into one corner of the roof.

The corner Wire has chosen is the one adjacent to the taller building and the wide main road – nowhere to jump in one way, an unscalable climb in the other. Touka’s mouth sets into a grim line. It’s a fairly transparent plan, but then again, it doesn’t need to be particularly opaque. If she can’t hold her ground, if she actually can’t stop Wire from corralling her, little by little, to where she can’t escape, then Wire doesn’t need to conceal her intentions. The broad expanse of the roof beckons, the view sliced occasionally by orange kagune. Wire is good at individual control of the two _halves_ of the kagune, Touka notices … but she tends to move each group of the extensions as a whole … if she can use that …

_Now_ . Touka jumps. She jumps just as one of Wire’s leftmost kagune strands swings downward to cut under her defenses. The rest of the kagune on that side should be down as well, is the theory – is the theory – _please please please please_ –

She almost clears it. And then she feels a kagune wrap around he ankle.

It’s exactly what she was fearing, so she reacts quickly to it. She pulls her body in tight, close to the tangle, and pries it off with an agonized yell, feeling her hands and ankle rubbed raw where the serrated surface slithered against her skin. She flies through the air, Wire whipping her away like a toy – she frees herself, but she’s going to land hard.

She lands on her back, back in the corner. The air leaves her body. She hears a strange sound – her own voice, the sound of her lungs trying to remember how to draw in air. She can’t get up. She flops, flounders, like a fish, her back arching.

Wire approaches, slow. Touka’s eyes widen, like her mouth, strained open and grasping, desperate, for something, nothing.

And then all at once Touka remembers how to breathe.

She sucks in air and _flies_ to her feet, a flipping motion that propels her almost _too_ high into the air, and she lands and it’s the best option so she rushes Wire, runs directly towards her, gets in close past the practical range for the use of kagune (past Touka’s practical range, too) and she wraps her arms around Wire’s waist in a bear hug tackle.

It’s not what Wire was expecting, and Touka gets her off balance before she can recover. And then they’re grappling, fumbling and graceless, headbutts and knees and elbows and shoving and hair-pulling and Touka feels teeth in her arm and Wire’s mask is rough and cold on her skin and she lifts her leg and sticks it between Wire’s ankles and sweeps and _cuts_ away, and Wire is going down, falling, Touka on top of her, and Touka’s hands go to Wire’s windpipe and press down.

Wire struggles. But Touka has a good grip. This is not the first time she’s strangled someone. She sees Wire’s eyes go wide as she realizes she can’t resist, and then roll as the lack of oxygen starts to get to her head.

That look. That look of realization that says _I might die here_. That look always haunts Touka.

Wire’s throat works against her fingers. “ _Mmmm_ …” she groans, a horrible strained sound. “P _…_ please _…_ ”

Pleading. That haunts Touka, too. She watches her fingers tighten, her heart racing too fast to think, but she watches her hands and a detached part of herself _hates_ it.

“Just … we just … wanted …”

Choking someone is one of the worst ways to kill. It’s way too intimate. Touka can literally feel the life leaving Wire’s body.

“... to eat … to _live_ … just … wanted … to live …”

Touka had just wanted that, too.

 

_She had heard about that place through rumor. It was a safe haven, a provider, a peacemaker, blah, blah, blah. All Touka heard was “food.”_

_She hadn’t found the stock. She had wormed her way inside after hours and proceeded to tear it apart from top to bottom, pulling cabinets and bookshelves away from walls and clearing jugs and jugs of human drink cartons out of refrigerators, but she hadn’t found it. Not a piece of that stock she’d heard of, stock enough to feed a ward._

_If she could find it, she could survive for … well, however long. That was what she had thought, when she decided to risk this. She could take their stock, and she could continue to survive. And she had failed. And now she’s going to die. To die, for trying to live._

_Sometimes, that’s just how it goes._

_The old man stares at her, inscrutable. His wrinkled, ancient face looks almost placid in its neutral expression, but the black gleam of the kakugan adds an element of sinisterness to the picture that can’t be ignored. It isn’t him who’s got a kagune to her throat, but it must be one of his lackeys, and Touka can bet that one sign from him will spill the contents of her veins onto the polished wood floors._

_“This isn’t a free-for-all, you know,” he says to her. Gentle, his voice is gentle. Why is it gentle? “I don’t permit stealing.”_

_“I …” Touka says, and stops. No point in begging if she’s just going to die._

_The old man stares at her, inscrutable. Then he nods to his lackey. Touka closes her eyes._

_And the kagune slides away._

_Touka’s eyes fly back open. What is this? Is it drawing back to stab her? No – it’s dissolving, dissolving, and both of them are looking at her with the blackness falling from their eyes, gone, clear. Letting down their guard._

_“I don’t permit stealing,” says the old man, “but I will give you whatever you need if you are willing to work for it.”_

_Touka doesn’t work for anyone. If she needs something, she takes it. That’s how it works._

_“So, what do you say? Would you join Anteiku?”_

  


Mercy.

Everything Touka is today, she is because of mercy. Because she had wanted to live, and someone had told her, _that’s allowed_.

_Shit_ , she thinks, as she realizes what she’s already decided to do.

Well, she hadn’t wanted to kill Wire anyway.

Her hands first loosen, and then fall away. Immediately, Wire takes a huge, strained, shuddering intake of breath.

Touka isn’t prepared for the rush of emotion that comes with sparing a life. But seeing Wire, alive because of her hand, Touka feels an emotional _click_ , and as she watches Wire draw the life back into herself Touka knows, she’s sure, she is _sure_ , that she was right to do this. “I don’t have to kill you,” Touka begins. “I don’t want to. There’s another way. You can join us. Stop hurting people. Live a stable life. You know I’m not an expert at pacifism or whatever but it’s not so bad really, and the manager is way too fucking forgiv–”

_What –_

Touka can’t speak.

_Squeezing_.

Wire’s eyes, right up close to hers. Wire’s kagune, wrapped around her throat.

_Squeezing. Squeezing! Crushing! Constricting! Killing her! KILLING HER!_

Come on. Breathe. _Breathe_ . _BREATHE!_

Disappointment mixed with triumph in Wire’s raw voice. “So you’re not that strong after all.”

_SHE CAN’T BREATHE_

“See. Doesn’t matter who wins or loses in a fight. It just matters if you live or die. You could have lived, if you’d killed me.”

_SHE NEEDS AIR_

_Lifting_ . Wire is lifting her up – by her neck, _by her NECK_ – lifting her up, lifting her over, stepping, to the edge of the roof. Touka’s fingers dig into the kagune, tearing, bleeding, but she can’t get a grip.

Touka’s vision has gone hazy. There is no air in her body. She is dying. Far below, far, far, far, far below, blurry, cars and pedestrians crawl through the streets of the city. Tiny dots, the street a ribbon, the sidewalk squares little miniscule tiles. Red glowing alien eyes: brake lights.

Everyone is born with an innate fear of falling. Babies never have to be taught to stay away from edges. The mind knows, knows what will kill the body.

_This is it_.

Touka tastes salt. This is how her mercy is repaid.

But … but that’s how it goes sometimes.

She’s going to die. And it’s okay. Because she is dying as herself, dying honest, dying merciful, dying in the name of Anteiku and everyone she loves. It’s okay.

_No. It isn’t okay._

Her feet kick. Blackness begins to close on her vision. It isn’t okay. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to die now. She hasn’t lived enough, loved enough. There is a wrenching sensation in her gut. Yoshimura. Yomo. Kaneki. Hinami. Nishiki. Yoriko. _Yoriko_ . Everyone, and everything, she sees it being taken away from her, everything, losing, she doesn’t want to die, _she doesn’t want to die SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DIE_

Her foot hits the edge of the roof. There’s a bit of a lip, a low ridge just a bit higher than everything else. She throws her head back, mouth gaping open, soundless, airless. The arm of Wire’s kagune flexes around her neck. Wire leans in, staring, watching her face, watching her face as she dies.

She’s gone. She’s out. She’s down.

It’s already over.

Touka’s foot braces against the wall.

Her whole weight is out, out over the endless drop, except for that.

Wire is leaning in. Leaning. Closer.

Touka gathers up the scraps of her remaining strength, squeezes her foggy eyes shut, bends her knee, and _shoves_.

The balance tips. Wire flails. They’re both going over.

_Why does she do it?_

Maybe she wanted to regain some sense of control. Die at her own doing. Or maybe, it’s just that it was the one possible action left to her in her lifetime, and she took it for the sake of that alone.

As she falls, her hands go to her throat. This is the end, and nothing else matters, and she doesn’t need to have another thought in her lifetime, so she tears, tears, tears until there’s nothing left. And as she falls, she breathes.

The world opens up beneath her. The world rushing, the world blurring, the world zooming in impossibly fast towards her face.

She throws out her arms. She throws out her wings.

And now it’s spinning. She’s spiraling. The air is beneath her. The world is _slowing_.

There’s a tether, on her leg, tugging her down.

_Wire_.

Sense begins to return to her. Wire, Wire is hanging onto her leg. And she, she, is slowing their fall, but Wire’s weight is dragging her down, and the ground, it’s getting closer, so fast, so fast –

Touka kicks. She doesn’t even think about it. She kicks. Once, twice. Wire lets go.

The air picks Touka up and flips her around. The building. The building! She throws herself at it. She doesn’t see Wire fall. Her side hits brick, still falling, scraping down – her arm catches a windowsill, her body yanks her arm, something tears. She holds on. She writhes. A fish caught on the end of a line. A girl suspended above the city.

She brings up her other arm to join the first.

And there she is.

Hanging.

Stopped.

There’s a window just below. Touka kicks it in, and swings through, landing on broken glass. It’s an office, vacant. She wouldn’t care if it wasn’t. She wouldn’t care if cameras from all the major news stations in Japan were waiting for her. She wouldn’t care if the head of the CCG himself was here. She wouldn’t care if all of her classmates saw her, all of her teachers, all of her friends, Yoriko. Everyone who thought she was human.

The ground is beneath her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 is being a bit screwy about formatting italics and im too lazy to fix it lmao


	9. Chapter 9

She’s alive.

It’s such a remarkable, overwhelming thought.

See, the thing about life is that because of like evolution and shit, your body really, really wants you to  _ stay _ alive. And when you almost die, but you don’t, everything basically goes “good FUCKING JOB, kid” for a while. Touka can feel her  _ aliveness _ in a way she’s never felt … well, a way she’s only ever felt after her handful of  _ other _ near-death experiences. Heart, pounding. Lungs, breathing. Eyes, looking. Hands, feeling. Throat, hurting – and her other injuries, too, but blood is pulsing through her veins and she can feel the healing process beginning, feel the pain abating, and she just sits there, propped against a file cabinet, surrounded by shards of broken glass,  _ feeling _ everything, letting her  _ aliveness _ sit in her and simmer.

She’s so, so glad.

It’s a bit like the feeling after being doused with cold water. Clean and alert and clear. Clear. Almost dying is a great way to clear your head. You look at your life and you think, “If I could only live a little more, I’d do this differently.”

There’s a thump of footsteps from above, but descending. A nearby stairwell. They come closer, to Touka’s floor.

Touka doesn’t even care. She doesn’t move.

The knob rattles, and the door opens.

A human stands in the doorway. An old human, deep lines in his forehead and the corners of his eyes – cleaning staff, judging by the rag in one of his hands. “So I did hear a crash,” he says, half to himself. Touka sees him take in the broken window, the glass on the floor, her own beat-up body.

Touka tries a gentle swallow before she speaks, testing out her throat. “Yep,” she says, her voice coming out gravelly.

“You came through the window,” the old man says.

“Yep,” Touka says again.

“Are you all right?”

Touka clears her throat. “Mhmm.”

Her kagune is away, and her eyes are back to normal, so she shouldn’t be in danger of exposure as a ghoul. Apart from that, though, this situation is still very strange. Touka eyes him warily, but can’t quite convince herself to get up.

But the old man does something she doesn’t expect. He nods, and steps into the room – and he sits down, slowly, with an exhale and the cracking of bones. “Remarkable,” he says softly.

The room settles into silence. Touka watches the old man, and the old man stares at the filing cabinets across from him. A clock on the wall ticks loudly.

“You must have really wanted to live,” the old man says eventually.

Touka blinks at him. “Yeah,” she says.

“You know,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of things. Things you wouldn’t believe.”

So has Touka. She says nothing.

He looks at her, and smiles, his whole face wrinkling in a way that reminds her of Yoshimura. “That kind of will to live will get you a long way, my dear,” he says.

Touka says nothing again. She can’t figure out how to reply.

The old man’s gaze goes distant, and he gives another laborious exhale. “You have to remember that,” he says. “Remember now, and how much you want to live. Remind yourself. Every day.”

“Yeah,” Touka says, lacking anything else to say. He thinks she tried to kill herself, she realizes. He thinks she tried to kill herself and then changed her mind.

He nods a few times. Thoughtful. A bit sad. “Don’t be afraid of falling,” he tells her. “You’ll catch yourself. But also –” he turns his head, looks her in the eye “– don’t bring yourself to the edge. And don’t be so scared of falling that you decide to jump, to get it over with.”

“I won’t,” Touka promises.

“That’s good,” he says, and smiles again.

They sit together for a long moment. Touka, in her aliveness, can sense his, too. A wiry, weathered aliveness born of struggle and self-doubt and victory against the odds.

They may be thinking of two very different things. But the  _ idea _ , the idea is the same.

Eventually, with a crackle of kneebones and a muffled grunt, the old man picks himself up. “Don’t worry about the window, my dear,” he says. And winks. “I’ll tell them I have no idea what happened. I didn’t even know it was broken.”

“Thank you,” Touka says.

He shuts the door softly, and she hears his footsteps thunk upwards, much slower than he had descended.

Touka swallows. Her throat is better. Her ribs? She can barely feel them. Her cuts and scratches have healed.

It’s time to return to Anteiku.

 

****

 

Anteiku’s corner is lit up bright. Without even window glass to filter the light inside, it spills onto the street and glints on the shards spread there.

A police car is parked outside, and as Touka approaches a uniformed figure comes out of the shop and climbs into the front seat. The car’s lights turn on and it speeds away. Yoshimura stands in the doorway, watching it go.

Touka walks up the street slowly. Is that all of them? She hopes so. She scans the scene, squinting to see through the window. Someone is inside, walking. Pacing. Back and forth, back and forth.

As she gets closer, Touka sees that it’s Kaneki.

_ What’s he doing here? _

She narrows her eyes against the light, bright as she reaches the shop. There’s Yoshimura, and there’s Kaneki, and Yomo leaning against the counter, and … no one else she can see, so hopefully it’s safe.

As Touka passes into view of the front windows, Kaneki spots her.

“Touka!” he yelps, and dives for the door, tumbling through it and skidding to a stop, wide-eyed, before her. “You’re okay!”

Touka allows herself a bit of a smile. “Hell yeah I’m okay,” she says, blowing on her knuckles. “That bitch didn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m so sorry!” Kaneki exclaims, and throws himself at her.

It puts a bit of strain on her already-healed ribs. “Ugh,” she grunts. “Uh, yeah, it’s fine.” She pats his back gingerly.

“It was her, right?!” he says, letting go of Touka. “The one I let escape?”

Touka looks at him. “... Let’s go inside,” she suggests.

The shop is a mess. Overturned tables,  _ broken _ tables, smashed glass, smashed pewter, disarray like a tornado had blown through the place. Touka swallows. They’ll put it back together eventually … but right now, she can’t help but feel a sinking sensation in her gut at the sight of the destruction.

There is one other person inside that Touka had missed, peering through the window. Nishiki. He sits in one of the still-intact chairs, ankle crossed over knee, head tipped back.

“You,” Touka says when she sees him. She can’t muster any real anger, but that damn Nishiki. Holy shit.

He looks at her, and then away again disinterestedly. “Hey, Touka,” he says. “You look awful.”

“Fuck you,” Touka says.  _ Does he really not feel bad at all? _

But, no. The corner of Nishiki’s mouth tightens. His eyes flick again to hers. She glares at him, and he looks away.

“Touka, what happened here?” Yoshimura asks, bringing her attention around. The manager is sitting on one of the stools, his face calm, but his body language grave.

“Got attacked,” Touka says, shrugging. “I mean, Anteiku did, not me. That ghoul lady from the other day brought her gang.”

“Gang?”

“Yeah, three of them. Weren’t the other two still here when you guys showed up?”

Yoshimura and Yomo exchange glances. “No,” Yoshimura says.

“Oh.” Touka grimaces. But she supposes it doesn’t matter that much, in the end. She doubts they’ll try again. “They must’ve escaped. It was this little guy with a snail mask and this tall woman with a bird mask. I took care of them, and then Wire – the one you met – came out and challenged me, and I ended up running off and we fought on top of this building. I beat her,” Touka adds, with a touch of pride.

“Well isn’t that all very nice,” Nishiki says, half to himself. “You didn’t need us after all.”

“Hey, you shit,” Touka says, looking over her shoulder at him. “I almost died. So next time, fucking be there, okay?”

When she looks back around, Yomo is looking at the manager, and Yoshimura is giving him a nod. Yomo nods back, looks to Touka, and seems to almost smile at her. Then, without a word, he turns and disappears into the back room. Moments later, Touka hears the click of the spring as he leaves out the side.

Yoshimura steeples his fingers and looks at the three of them. “I will make coffee,” he says. “While I do – Nishiki and Kaneki, please begin cleaning up. Touka, you can rest. I’ll just be a moment.”

He, too, vanishes into the back room, closing the door behind him.

Nishiki pries himself up from the chair, stretching. “All right,” he groans. “Ugh. He’s just like a grandpa.”

Touka shrugs. Suddenly, she realizes she’d prefer to be sitting down. She goes to the chair Nishiki vacated, and drops into it heavily.

For a moment, there’s just silence and the clinking of glass as the boys begin to sleep. Now that she’s sitting down, Touka begins to feel her bones aching. She scrubs her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“Touka,” Kaneki says. He’s holding a broom, his hands clutching the stick, staring at her in concern. “Are you really okay?”

She passes an arm across her forehead. “I really did almost die tonight,” she admits. “Got dangled by my neck off the edge of a building. That sort of thing …” She trails off with a shrug. “I’m tired.”

“Shit,” Kaneki whispers.

He begins to move the broom, but doesn’t seem as if he’s really paying attention to what he’s doing. “It’s my fault,” he says, after a moment.

“Kaneki …”

“I let her escape. And then she came back and did …  _ this _ .”

“Kaneki, it’s –”

“No, Touka, I know, okay? It’s my fault.”

Touka doesn’t speak for a moment. Kaneki’s eyes focus miserably downward.

“It was your mercy.”

Kaneki looks up. “What?”

Touka bites the inside of her cheek. She can’t believe she’s saying this. “It was your mercy,” she repeats. “That allowed the ghoul to escape.”

Kaneki eyes her, but doesn’t respond. Touka inhales deeply, then sighs. “I could’ve killed her,” she admits. “At one point. I had her …” she gestures vaguely “... right there. But I decided not to. I let her go. And then she almost killed me instead. Was that wrong?”

Kaneki hesitates. “I …” he says. “I … don’t know. But I don’t think … I don’t think you should be blamed, for giving her a chance.”

Touka doesn’t say anything, but she raises her eyebrows pointedly in Kaneki’s direction.

In the silence following overtures of forgiviness, Nishiki decides to chime in. “Oh, oh!” he announces in his most obnoxious tone of voice, clicking his fingers. “I just remembered. I almost went into the back and left Touka on her own to clean up the shop, but she threatened to go home if I did that, so I didn’t. But if I had, she would’ve been fine right now. So I should’ve just left right then. It’s  _ my _ fault.”

“You’re an asshole,” Touka says. But at least Kaneki doesn’t look so terrible now.

Touka leans back in her chair and listens to the clink of glass as Kaneki and Nishiki sweep shards into trash bags. Exhaustion has set in, exhaustion and hunger.

“Kaneki,” Touka says, after several minutes.

She has something she needs to ask him. It’s a bit personal, and she’d rather not have this conversation in front of Nishiki, but she’s decided it doesn’t matter  _ that _ much, and anyway, it’s not like he can judge.

“Yeah?”

“Well,” Touka says. She frowns at the smashed cup on the floor by the counter. “You know, almost dying made me think about some shit.”

Kaneki waits.

“I wanted to ask you …” Touka takes a deep breath, “how you make it work.”

“Make what work?”

Touka lets the silence go on for a long moment. She sweeps the hair out of her face and shakes her head at nothing. “With … Hide,” she says, eventually.

Kaneki nods, slowly.

“How does it work, you know, with … him being human?” Touka says. “And him … not knowing? How do you do it?”

Kaneki’s face … Well, Kaneki’s face goes through a series of rather  _ interesting _ expressions. What’s he thinking about? Touka narrows her eyes. “Touka, I …” he says, then presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Okay.”

“What?” she asks, her voice sharpening.

Kaneki lifts his head and looks her directly in the eye. “Okay,” he says again. His chest rises and falls. He squares his shoulders. “I’m going to trust you,” he says. “The thing is, Hide … Hide knows.”

“ _ What? _ ”

“Ah-ha,” Nishiki mutters.

“Hide knows,” Kaneki repeats.

“ _ How _ does he know?!” Touka exclaims. “What did you tell him? How could you do that?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Kaneki says. “He figured it out himself. He’s fine with it.” A touch of astonishment colors his tone. “He’s even seen me eat, and he’s fine with it.”

Touka leans back in her chair and drags a hand down her face. “What the fuck,” she groans.

“I know,” Kaneki says. He adds, with a wince, “Please don’t kill him, now that you know he knows?”

Touka looks up. “I wasn’t thinking it,” she says, her brow wrinkling.

And at that, Kaneki gives her a  _ look _ . Perplexed? Searching? Touka looks back, puzzled. In his corner, Nishiki glances over his shoulder, and looks too.

The door to the back room opens, and Yoshimura stands in the frame. The stares swivel around to him. “Coffee is ready,” he says. “Would you please join me?”

 

****

 

Touka’s stuff is still exactly where she left it. Maybe that’s not so surprising, but given that up to this point it’s been an Anteiku turned on its head, it’s a little shocking to see her notes and textbooks still balanced on the arm of the chair.

It’s a real relief, too.

“This is wrong,” Nishiki says, holding up one of her worksheets by the corner. Touka snatches it from him, scowling, and sticks it into the pile she’s stuffing into her bag.

“Useless dumbass Nishitty,” is the best retort she can muster.

Three cups of coffee sit on the table. Once Touka clears her stuff, she sits in the chair it occupied. Kaneki and Nishiki both take the couch. Yoshimura is off somewhere, doing something else.

The three teenagers sit and drink.

Touka still can’t get the earlier conversation out of her head. She feels almost unsteady, as if the world has shifted just a little bit under her feet. “I can’t believe it,” she says under her breath. “How did you get away with that?” Her voice is almost pleading. “ _ Why _ is he okay with it?”

Kaneki looks over at her in surprise. But in a moment he seems to understand what she’s asking. “I … really don’t know,” he says. “He’s just  _ like _ that.”

“Right off the bat? He was okay right off the bat?” Touka presses.

“Yeah … yeah, he was.”

Touka looks down at her lap. She frowns heavily.

“Kimi was … she wasn’t, entirely,” Nishiki speaks up, unexpectedly. “Not right away.”

The younger two members of the room swivel to look at him. Nishiki shifts uncomfortably. “Just thought I’d speak up, since you’re asking for advice.” Is there anything double-edged to his tone? Touka can’t detect it. “Yeah, Kimi came around slower. She was a bit afraid, at the beginning. But she accepted  _ me _ right off, and she was willing to listen … She didn’t have anyone else, see.” Nishiki frowns self-consciously. “I still think it’s something she’s with me  _ in spite of _ , though.”

Touka can’t shake the conviction that he’s being sarcastic. She squints at him, trying to figure out where the trap in his words is.

“You don’t have to look at me like  _ that _ ,” Nishiki grumbles, turning away. “I was only trying to help. If I’m going to be senpai to you two gay-ass kids and all.”

Touka can’t even bring herself to be surprised he’d guessed.

Yoshimura rematerializes then, a brown paper package in his hands. Instantly, all three of them sit straighter. “Touka, dear, I brought you this to eat,” he says. “To help you recover. You’ve been indispensable in the defense of Anteiku tonight.”

Touka instantly goes on alert. “Thanks, sir,” she says, heartfelt. But even though she knows full well she’s safe, she can’t help looking around as she takes it. Eating can’t possibly be a casual experience to a ghoul. Territorialism, hunger, desperation … she’s learned a lot of hard lessons, and they aren’t easily forgotten. Nishiki is trying to look bored, but his eyes have become strangely fixated on the package in her hand. He isn’t moving, though. Yoshimura, as always, looks like he’s meditating. And Kaneki has never learned those lessons. She’s safe. She’s safe. Smoothly, slowly, Touka unwraps the package and brings it to her mouth.

As she eats, Yoshimura settles in the last unclaimed chair. “I happened to overhear the last moments of your conversation,” he says, cupping his hands around a mug of coffee.

The three of them exchange slightly nervous looks.

“I’m not about to warn you away from your … humans of interest.” Yoshimura smiles serenely. “The opposite. I think what you’re doing is very dangerous, but it’s also very brave.” He lifts his cup and takes a sip. “I am a great believer in the natural tendency of ghoul and human to form bonds. And the bonds that all of you share are … signs, to me, that peace is possible. They have accepted you, after all. Or, if they haven’t, you hope they will.” Touka looks up from rapidly consuming her meal, to find Yoshimura smiling gently, right at her. “But first and foremost,” he says, “I want to keep all of you safe.”

Touka finishes and sets the wrapper slowly down on the table.

“If anything were to happen,” Yoshimura says, “Anteiku will take care of you. Without question. I would hope it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, we would do everything in our power to ensure your safety.”

He’s still looking at her, a significant gleam in his eye. What is he saying? What does he mean? Does he expect her to say something? “Thanks?” she says uncertainly.

“But,” he says, “I don’t think it will come to that.” He finishes his coffee and sets his cup very precisely on its saucer. “It’s been a long night for all of you,” he says. “I won’t ask any more of you tonight. Don’t worry about coming in tomorrow morning. I’ll have Yomo send you revised schedules later.” Yoshimura rises.

Touka finishes off her coffee in one gulp and sets it down, too. Yoshimura begins to gather the tray, the cups and saucers, spoons, Touka’s wrapper. The boys stir. Nishiki jumps up and stretches, spine cracking. Kaneki rises more slowly. Touka has to convince her legs to work before she can follow suit. “Well, I gotta get going,” Nishiki announces. “Kimi will want to know about what happened.”

“Yeah, I …” Kaneki says, trailing off and rubbing his eyes.

“Good night, all of you,” Yoshimura says. He balances the tray and leans his back against the door to the dishroom, pressing it open. “Oh, and Touka.”

Touka, bent to pick up her bag, hastily straightens. “Yes?”

Yoshimura holds her eyes, that look of significance back in his gaze. He wants her to understand something. “Whatever you decide to do … good luck.”

He tips his chin in a tiny nod.

Something astonished and electrified jolts in her hands.

Then he’s gone, and the three young people are left looking after him.

Into the silence, Nishiki remarks, “So, he knows you’re into her, too. You could learn a thing or two about subtlety, probably.”

Touka shakes herself. “Oh, will you and Kimi demonstrate that?” she snips back, with more alacrity than she’d thought herself capable of at the moment. “I’d like to see the day.”

Kaneki laughs quietly.

“Oh, yeah, laugh away, Mr. Constantly-making-out-in-public,” Nishiki says. “At least  _ I _ know how to close a door. Which, would be better if  _ someone _ could remember to knock, but –”

“We  _ don’t _ make out in public,” Kaneki objects, frowning. “That much.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re pretty bad,” Touka says.

“Hey, even  _ she _ agrees with me. I must be right.”

“Actually, I take it back. I don’t agree with you. About anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yeah. Whatever you say, no matter what, I disagree.”

“Okay. Then in that case, I think that short blonde girl is just about the  _ cutest _ and I’m  _ super _ lesbian for her.”

“You know what? You know what? Fuck you.”

“Hah hah hah hah …”

 

****

 

Touka goes straight to Yoriko’s.

She doesn’t even stop off at her house to put down her stuff. She just goes. It’s getting close to three in the morning, and she should be exhausted, but her blood is buzzing, partly from the recent meal, partly from nervous excitement. There’s no way she can sleep now. There’s no way she can leave this for later. It has to be now. Now, while she’s feeling just crazy enough to do it. To tell Yoriko everything.

She thinks distantly as she climbs the fire escape (thank goodness for fire escapes) that she’s lost count of the number of building she’s scaled that day.

Yoriko leaves her window unlocked, which is dumb, because  _ anyone _ could get to it by stepping over the edge of the fire escape and inching windowsill to windowsill along the side of the building and clutching onto the drainpipe around the corner and diving for the jutting sill of her window and lifting it up and climbing in. Which is exactly what Touka has done, on more than one occasion. It’s only three storeys up, not bad at all. She clings to the outside of the building and wrenches the window up and with a clatter of blinds jumps into the room.

It’s dark in Yoriko’s room, something that, surprisingly, hadn’t occurred to Touka. But of course she’d be asleep. As her eyes adjust to the light, she sees the papers spread across the desk, the exam preparatory books piled up or left open, the pencils, the calculator. Touka smiles fondly.

She glances over at Yoriko’s slumbering form on the bed and for a very brief moment considers waking her up, but decides against it. She’s not an  _ asshole _ . Besides, Yoriko probably wouldn’t like it much if she did that … and Touka kind of needs Yoriko to like her.

Oh, well. Touka can wait. She can just sit here, set down her bag – which had made climbing the building a little more difficult, although not much – and stay put until Yoriko wakes up. It’ll give her time to formulate a way to tell her, actually, so it might be a good thing.

Oh, fuck.

How will she react?

Touka pulls out Yoriko’s desk chair and sits down. No. This is not the time to have doubts. She’d left her doubts to fall to the pavement when she’d decided to save herself, along with the rest of her petty fears and reservations about not telling people she loved them. She is going to do this.

She has all night to prepare.

Or so she thinks. An indefinite amount of time after Touka settles into Yoriko’s desk chair, she becomes vaguely aware that she might be falling asleep. She blinks her eyes open in consternation, but as soon as she does, she realizes she’s fighting a losing battle.

Touka gives in, and sleeps.

 

****

 

Yoriko’s alarm, followed by a soft shriek, wakes her.

Touka forces her eyes open. She feels awful. Her neck and shoulders hurt and her eyes feel sandy and gross and the sweat and dirt from the fight yesterday have set and now her skin feels oily.

“Oh, shit. Oh, it’s just you,” Yoriko gasps. “Touka, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Had to talk to you,” Touka manages. She moves to get up, and loses her balance and falls on the ground. Oh. She is  _ not _ awake. She is perhaps the opposite of awake. As opposite of awake as it is possible to be without actually being asleep.

“Are you okay?!”

“What? Yeah, ’m fine,” Touka says. “Whoa.” She’s standing, successfully. Nice.

Yoriko is staring at her, a mixture of concern and fright. “You look  _ horrible _ , and, and  _ why _ did you come over in the middle of the  _ night _ , I thought …”

“Don’t worry,” Touka says. Shit, she hurts  _ all over _ . “What time is it?”

“Seven,” Yoriko says. “When I usually wake up. You know, for school. What time did you come in last night?!”

“About three,” Touka says.

“Touka!”

“What?”

“What were you  _ doing _ ? I thought I was bad – I was up till one, studying, but – you have to take  _ care _ of yourself, what’s so important that you had to …” Yoriko’s face changes. Her eyes focus; she squints carefully at Touka.

Touka shrugs. “It can wait,” she says. “Let’s go to school.”

“Yeah …” Yoriko says. “Okay.”

Yoriko climbs out of bed. She’s wearing her pajamas, blue fuzzy shirt and shorts. Touka watches her blankly as she goes over to the wardrobe and pulls out her school uniform top and skirt. Then she turns around and studies Touka critically. “You can’t go to school in  _ that _ .”

Touka looks down at herself. She’s still in her practical clothes from last night. Now that she looks, in the full light of the morning, she can see it’s dirty and torn in a few places. A slash through her pants at her shin, little shreds on her sleeves at her shoulders. And – her eyes widen. Fortunately, her arm is obscuring the worst tear, the place on her right side where Wire’s kagune had impaled right through her. But Yoriko is right. She can’t go to school like this.

“You can borrow some of my clothes,” Yoriko suggests.

Touka blinks. “Oh. Yeah, okay,” she says.

Yoriko turns back to the wardrobe and digs through it until she finds another one for Touka. This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve shared clothes. They’re about the same size.

“I’ll go change in the bathroom,” Yoriko says, after a beat of hesitation. “You can … in here.”

“Okay,” Touka says.

Yoriko pauses, looking for a moment like she wants to say something more. Then she nods, and leaves the room.

Touka, holding the clothes, stands still for a moment. She’s  _ so _ tired. She’s as tired as she can ever remember being in her life. Shit, how’s she going to get through school today?

Maybe she’ll wake up a little more as the day goes on. Touka sighs, and sits down on Yoriko’s floor to get her shoes off. She bends forward, her spine cracking. Ah. Wow. Maybe she could close her eyes for a second … now that she’s sitting down, it feels like a good idea. Close her eyes … and roll over, onto her side …

And that’s the last thing Touka remembers before she wakes up again a little past 2pm.

 

****

 

Her first thought is  _ fuck _ .

Her second is,  _ oh well _ .

Yoriko must’ve let her sleep. The apartment, Touka finds, after probing, is empty. Touka rubs her eyes and yawns. She’s a little sore again, after sleeping on the floor, but she feels a lot better now.

After a few minutes of bleary wandering, she decides to take a shower. She gives it some thought, then takes the pile of clothes Yoriko tried to lend to her into the bathroom with her.

Yoriko’s shampoo feels good in her hair. She enjoys the scent of it perhaps a little too much, because it’s  _ Yoriko’s _ scent, and Touka’s pretty gay and all and she likes how Yoriko smells.

It also feels fucking fantastic to get all that dirt and sweat and blood from her fight off her skin.

She changes into Yoriko’s clothes and combs her hair and goes back to Yoriko’s room to wait. She settles on the end of Yoriko’s bed, thoughtful, and after a moment she reaches out and snatches the stuffed animal krill curled next to her pillow. Its name, Touka remembers after a moment, is Fluffy. She wraps her arms around its pink body contemplatively.

The shower had woken her further, and she’s now mentally present enough to realize a few things. First, that she was really stupid to think that she’d be able to stay up all night  _ or _ go to school the next day after  _ that _ fight. Second, that she’s probably in trouble at school for her unexcused absence. Though that’s a minor concern compared to: third, that as soon as Yoriko comes home, Touka will have to face the revelation of her biggest secret and possibly the destruction of her entire identity.

She could just, well,  _ not _ do it.

But she forces herself to think it through. And when she thinks of continuing her life as it was, pretending to love Yoriko’s food, lying about her past, her present,  _ herself _ , rejecting her when she  _ loves _ her – and when she thinks about dying (as she could any day) without ever trying to change that … it isn’t even a choice.

The apartment door opens around three-thirty. Touka stiffens. “I’m back,” Yoriko’s voice announces tiredly. “Touka? Are you still here?”

Yoriko comes into her bedroom, raising her eyebrows when she sees Touka perched on the end of the bed. She drops her bag by the door. “Oh, hello. Were you here all day?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Touka says with a shrug. “I mean, I slept through most of it. What about cram school?”

“I didn’t go today,” Yoriko says. She tips her head at the sort of angle that implies she doesn’t quite know how much is permissible to speak aloud in this conversation. Touka knows that Yoriko skipped because of her, and Yoriko knows that Touka knows that.

As Yoriko hesitantly steps in past the doorway, Touka relinquishes Fluffy and pushes herself up off the bed. Yoriko stops a few feet short of Touka and shifts her feet. “Um, I stopped by the office, and they said your grandpa called you out,” Yoriko says, pushing the tips of her fingers together in a steeple and then letting them flatten in a precise sort of way. She pauses. “I didn’t know you had a grandpa who, who did that sort of thing for you.”

Touka shrugs again. “Yeah … I guess,” she says. She brushes her hair out of her eyes. Yoshimura. She’ll have to thank him later.

“Yeah, so … so I was wondering, um … like, why did you show up in my room in the middle of the night? If you, you know, if you don’t mind explaining.”

She thinks she’ll scare Touka away.

Touka wonders what she had looked like, first thing in the morning.

She tries a rueful smile, feeling it manifest as lopsided as everything else is about her. “Yeah, I don’t know. I got a little excited? I just had … I wanted to … well, I didn’t want to wait.”

“Oh,” Yoriko says, and Touka can  _ see _ her not asking “wait for what.”

“It’s okay,” Touka says. “I’m not going to run away. I … yeah, I guess I have to tell you that thing now.”

She moves to the center of the room, stepping sideways and backwards from Yoriko in the process. She spreads her arms, then drops them to her sides. “Okay,” she says.

It’s one of those times when your heartbeat makes it hard to see. It doesn’t make any sense but that’s what happens. You might be talking steadily but you’re not calm, you’re so not calm, and the difference between what’s going on with your heart and your lungs and your adrenaline levels and what’s going on with your mouth and your brain is wide enough to mess with you.

Yoriko shifts uncertainly, waiting.

“What if,” Touka says, hearing every syllable pass reluctantly from between her lips, “I had a secret.”

But Yoriko already knows that.

“A really  _ bad _ secret,” Touka clarifies. “Really really bad.” Now that she’s gotten going, her throat has stopped trying to drag the words back into her stomach, but it isn’t any easier to think. “What if I had a really really  _ really bad secret _ , bad enough that if I told you what it is there’s a  _ good fucking chance _ you’d hate me forever. Or be afraid of me. Or both. Whatever.” She takes a breath, sees that Yoriko looks like she’s about to speak. “And I really mean that,” Touka ruses to specify, before she can. “I’m not just being like fucking stupid or something. I’m completely one hundred percent serious. There is a  _ sizable _ chance that you’d hate me.”

“I wouldn’t –”

“You might.”

Touka’s face is set. But Yoriko’s is, too. “O _ kay _ ,” she says reluctantly. “But I  _ probably _ wouldn’t hate you.”

“You’re trying to make me feel less stupid for being about to tell you my fucking awful secret,” Touka says with dry humor, “which I appreciate. So thanks. For being nice to me when I’m … like this.”

“Like what?”

Well. There’s no other way to say it.

_ A ghoul _ .

Touka can hear herself saying it. Saying it now. The words, coming out of her mouth, into the air, no way to take them back. It echoes in her ears.

Her throat works. Her stomach clenches. She’s  _ there _ , she’s  _ saying _ it, she’s  _ doing _ it, but no sound is coming out.

A very, very long, and very, very,  _ very _ tense moment passes.

“You know what,” Touka says eventually, “I’m chickening out.”

“What?! No you’re not!” Yoriko exclaims. “After that buildup? No!”

“Yeah I am,” Touka says. “And you know what’s dumb? I literally almost got killed yesterday. I almost, almost died. I came  _ this _ close, seriously. And I am too fucking scared of  _ this _ to do it.”

“Wh– what are you talking about, you almost died, what –?”

“I – fuck, Yoriko, I got dangled off a building by my  _ neck _ . It was scary as fuck, I almost pissed my pants. But you know, stuff like that just  _ happens _ when you’re a ghoul.”

There.

Okay.

It’s out.

There’s a kind of ringing in Touka’s ears.

“You’re a what?” Yoriko says very quietly.

Touka’s mouth doesn’t want to open. Her jaw is rusted shut.

“Ghouls are … those are …  _ real? _ ”

Touka swallows thickly.

“I …” Yoriko’s hands go to her head, grip her scalp through her hair. “What …? You … this whole time …”

“Yeah,” Touka manages, clearing her throat. “I’m a bloodthirsty, man-eating  _ ghoul _ .”  _ And you were into me. Well! Not anymore. _

“I don’t believe it. I literally don’t believe it. I’m looking at you and I  _ cannot _ believe it.”

“Look again,” Touka says.

It’s hard to do, in front of her. Touka draws in a deep breath and closes her eyes and makes it happen, so that when she opens them again her eyes are all black with that awful ring of red in the center. And she lifts the back of her shirt, and lets her kagune flourish out of her.

She holds her arms out from her sides and lets her kagune extend. On her good side it’s longer than her arm, and she feels her presence filling the room, sees the vaguely luminescent blue bright in her periphery.

And there she is.

In front of Yoriko. Hiding absolutely nothing.

Yoriko’s eyes are wide. Her mouth forms a silent  _ wow _ .

“Believe it now?” Touka asks weakly.

“This is what a ghoul looks like?” Yoriko whispers, awed. “What … what  _ is _ that?”

“It’s … it’s called a kagune,” Touka says. “It’s the organ that – well, it’s a weapon.  _ The _ weapon.”  _ It’s what I use to kill. _

“It’s beautiful,” breathes Yoriko. And, against all common sense, all everything, she steps forward.

Touka holds her breath. Yoriko comes right up to her, stretches out a hand to her kagune, but doesn’t touch it, her fingers hesitating in midair. “So you’re a ghoul,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Yoriko says. Her hand is shaking a little. But she looks Touka right in the face, her eyes incredulous but steady, and there might be fear in her expression but there’s also curiosity and amazement and  _ thrill _ and she doesn’t look like she’s thinking about running away. “Yeah, that’s – that’s very … wow. I don’t know.”

_ Me neither _ , Touka wants to say.

“Okay,” Yoriko says again. She blows out an exhale, her cheeks puffing, and lets her shoulders relax. “Okay, explain. How do you … do you really eat people?”

“It’s – yeah. I do,” Touka says. Yoriko wants to hear her out. Yoriko wants to understand. Touka might … she might really have a shot? “It’s horrible. It’s a horrible way to live, but we can’t help it. My life was hell, everything – I lost my parents, my brother – but, but I’m more stable now,” she says, her own words dim in her ears as she realizes that her current stability is rocking, but she continues, pushing it out of her mind, “now, ever since – so there’s a group of us, a group of, I guess, pacifistic ghouls? And we support each other, and we don’t kill humans, we eat suicide victims, and we keep each other safe, we keep the 20th Ward safe. Or we try to. And – and there’s stuff we can put in coffee, like, to manage our hunger, kind of, so we won’t need to eat quite as often. Coffee is like a ghoul  _ thing _ , because ghouls can drink coffee, it’s one of the few things that we  _ can _ enjoy, most human food tastes like shit to us –”

Yoriko has flinched away, and Touka realizes what she’s done.

Well, they would have had to get here eventually.

“See, I told you that you’d hate me,” Touka says, and hears her voice come out defeated.

Yoriko’s mouth is twisting downward in an concerning way. “So. No human food, huh?”

She wants to hear a denial, wants Touka to tell her that that doesn’t mean what she thinks it means, but Touka can’t give her that. She stays silent, and Yoriko shakes her head.

“How terrible for you that you ended up befriending a cook,” Yoriko says, voice wry and pained.

Touka swallows, and begins to tie her fingers in knots. “I never wanted to lie,” she says, as if it helps. “I mean. I  _ wanted _ to be able to taste it. I really, really,  _ really _ wanted to.”

“But, you couldn’t. I get it.”

“I ate everything,” Touka says. Yoriko looks up. There might actually be tears in her eyes. And could you blame her? The girl stakes a good deal of her self-worth on her skill at cooking. “Everything you ever gave me,” Touka repeats softly. “I ate it. Even if you just brought it and left it, and I could’ve thrown it away without you ever knowing, I ate it. Because I didn’t want to lie to you.”

“That’s horrible,” Yoriko whispers. “This is so horrible. Everything about this is so horrible.”

“Yeah, you got it,” Touka can’t stop herself from saying.

“And here I am, feeling like shit because I thought you liked my cooking,” Yoriko says.

“No, no. I wanted to,” Touka says hollowly.

Yoriko shakes her head, dashing the subject away. “But, but  _ you’ve _ been … dealing with  _ this _ all your life. Suicide victims? That’s … so horrible. I mean, not the – it’s the  _ eating _ , what you have to do to just be  _ ethical _ , it’s so impossible … I didn’t know ghouls did that.”

“Yeah. It’s not common knowledge.”

“It always sounds like ghouls are – like you’re monsters.”

“They think of us that way. The doves,” Touka says bitterly.

“The doves?”

“CCG. Ghoul investigators. Ghoul  _ hunters _ . You know – I mean, I knew this little girl once. So smart, but she never got to go to school, since she was always on the run. And her mom got killed by doves, right in front of her. She saw it all.”

Yoriko’s tears spill over. “How awful,” she gasps, scrubbing furiously at her eyes with the back of her wrist.

“I’m not telling you this to upset you,” Touka says quietly. “It’s just, if I’m going to tell you the truth about me, I want you to know  _ all _ the truth. I want you to really understand. I want you to know how ugly it is.”

“It’s not ugly,” Yoriko says, wiping away her tears. “It’s just … I’m just sad.”

Touka can’t reply.

“Okay,” Yoriko says eventually. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. When she opens them again, she’s stopped crying. “Tell me more. Tell me about – your peaceful ghoul group. That’s Anteiku, right? I’m … guessing.”

Touka knows, distantly, that Yoriko could be intending to go to the CCG. That even now, she’s just pretending to want to understand in order to pump Touka for information.

But Touka can’t bring herself to believe it of her.

“Yeah, it’s Anteiku,” Touka says.

“So all the staff at Anteiku … ghouls? Like you?”

“Yeah.”

“Kaneki too?”

Touka doesn’t really know how to explain Kaneki. “Y...yeah,” she says. “Yeah, Kaneki’s a ghoul.”

“I thought so,” Yoriko says quietly. “I mean, I thought you were all involved with the same thing. I didn’t think it would be  _ this _ . Can I see your kagune again?” Her voice hesitates over the word  _ kagune _ , but she gets it right.

Touka had let it evaporate sometime before Yoriko started crying, but kept her kakugan still in place. “Sure,” she says. She coaxes it out of her again. Going slow takes effort – it just wants to  _ appear _ , to  _ be there _ , but she doesn’t want to scare Yoriko with the suddenness.

“Like wings,” Yoriko whispers. “Why are they asymmetrical?”

Touka shrugs one shoulder. “Why do I have side bangs?”*

“You said it’s a weapon?” Yoriko says. “How – how does it work?”

“Ahhh …” Touka says, flexing experimentally, “best not to test it out in here.”

“So, can you fly? Can you actually use it to fly?”

“No. But I can jump pretty high.”

“Can I touch it?”

Touka blinks. “Touch it?”

“Yeah,” says Yoriko. “Or is it, like, dangerous somehow? Would it hurt to touch?”

“No … well, depending on  _ where _ … but no, you can touch it.”

Yoriko bites her lip, and ventures close to Touka again, her eyes focused on the blue flare. She reaches out a hand, fingers outstretched.

She touches Touka on the inner part of her kagune, the part close to her body, where deep indigo meets the orange-yellow coloring that’s always made her look like a candle flame. Touka isn’t prepared to feel something. It’s all very dulled, sensation felt through the kagune as if it was covered by a thick layer of glass – but down here, by the base, it’s more sensitive.

“What’s it made of?” Yoriko asks.

“I … don’t know,” Touka answers. “It’s sometimes called  _ liquid muscle* _ , but I don’t know exactly what that means. I tend to think of it more … abstractly.”

Yoriko’s fingers brush along her kagune, and despite herself Touka feels it prickling, feels it  _ feathering _ – when an ukaku prepares to fragment but hasn’t done so yet and pieces of the kagune stand out like feathers. “What’s that?” Yoriko says.

“That’s, uh …” Touka says, trying to calm herself down. “It can kind of – no, don’t touch it!”

Too late. Yoriko jerks her hand back. “Sharp,” she pronounces, then hisses as the pain hits. A bead of blood wells opaque red and perfectly spherical along a hairline split in her skin as unnoticeable as a papercut. She sticks it into her mouth and sucks. Touka winces. The smell of blood hits her nose, very faint, but she’s conscious enough of it that she has to turn her head away anyway.

“So you don’t, like, go crazy when you see blood,” Yoriko says, watching her. “Good to know.”

Touka turns back to glare at her. “What kind of shitty manga have  _ you _ been reading?” she wants to know.

“I didn’t  _ think _ you were going to!” Yoriko defends herself. “I just wondered, you know, in hindsight …”

“Something like – ‘I can’t resist anymore,’ ” Touka says sarcastically. “ ‘I must … have … blood!’ Yeah, ghouls are just like that.”

“You’d make a good dark, brooding type of character,” Yoriko says, blotting her finger on the hem of her shirt. “But with a hidden sensitive side.”

“What are you talking about, sensitive side,” Touka grumbles.

Yoriko smiles. She raises her hand back to Touka’s kagune, fearless in spite of her injury. It’s still feathered out, but the inside of the kagune, the part Yoriko had been skirting with her fingers previously, remains smooth. Yoriko touches her fingertips to it, runs them along the smooth patch, and a rustling shudder passes up Touka’s kagune. She blinks in surprise. If she were a bird, she’d say she just ruffled her feathers. “What was that?” she asks blankly.

Yoriko looks surprised. “I don’t know,” she says. “I thought you’d be the one more likely to have the answer to that.”

“That hasn’t happened before,” Touka admits. In order to avoid the sharp feathers, Yoriko is standing closer to Touka’s body, close enough that Touka can smell her pleasant, warm, human scent.

“What does it feel like?” Yoriko wants to know. “When I touch it. Is it different? It feels different from skin, so …”

“It is different,” Touka says, clenching her jaw as Yoriko moves her thumb in a circle in a spot close to Touka’s side, under her raised arm. The feeling isn’t unpleasant, just … strange. “More, um, muted. Not quite like fingernails, or hair … more like teeth, I guess. Like, there  _ is _ sensation there, but it’s buried deep.”

“I see,” Yoriko muses. Then, she presses her thumb into the kagune, hard. Touka bites back a yelp of surprise. “So it’s a little flex– whoa.”

For a second, the entire wing flares up orange. 

“That’s very weird,” Touka says through gritted teeth. “It’s never done that before either. Why? Is it doing so many new things?”

“Maybe it just needed the touch of a virgin pure,” Yoriko says. She smiles at Touka, and Touka gulps. “You know, I guess you’re kind of like a unicorn. A really weird unicorn. A really weird unicorn without a horn who looks like a human with wing things that are actually designed to kill and look kinda like fire. You’re like that.”

“Thanks,” Touka says. And Yoriko kisses her.

She does it slow enough that Touka can see it coming, so that she can prepare herself and stop it if she wants to. But she doesn’t want to. Of course she doesn’t.

It’s their first honest kiss.

Her mouth is soft, lips a little bit parted, and she tilts her head just right to align them at a comfortable angle. Touka realizes all at once how tense she is, and lets herself relax fully and tilt her head and press back into the kiss.

Yoriko puts her hands on Touka’s waist and Touka, after deliberating, cups her face. Yoriko is leaning into her, warm, and something sharp and good and sustaining goes through her and as her kagune dissolves behind her she lets herself become aware of every place they touch, every not-quite-soft point of contact.

It’s something Touka never thought would happen. The calmness of it.

It ends naturally, and they break apart, but not too far. It takes Yoriko a second to open her eyes. When she does, she looks into Touka’s, and her face breaks into a slightly victorious smile. “Hell yes,” she whispers.

Oh yeah. Yoriko has been waiting for that for quite a long time. “I like you back,” Touka says.

“I know,” Yoriko says, rolling her eyes. “And, I bet you didn’t tell me because you’re a ghoul, and you were  _ too dangerous _ for me and I should  _ stay away if I know what’s good for me _ , but now since you’ve told me the truth it’s all good since I’ve chosen you anyway.”

Touka feels a smile coming on, unbidden. “Really?” she says. “You’re really okay with that?”

“Would I have kissed you otherwise?”

Touka can’t say anything to that, just kiss her again and try not to choke up.

“Sensitive side,” Yoriko murmurs when they part again.

“Stop it,” Touka grumbles, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“So, um,” Yoriko says, clearing her throat and brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “you said Kaneki’s a ghoul. But his, his boyfriend, the really smiley one – is he a ghoul too? Or is he human?”

“Human,” Touka says.

“And does he … know?”

“Yes. He knows. And also, Nishiki – you know, the horrible bad-tempered one – he has a human girlfriend. And she knows.”

“Good,” Yoriko says, relieved, optimistic. “That’s good to know. Good to know I’m not crazy, I guess. I mean, not that I think it’s crazy to trust you, or anything –”

“Oh, it’s plenty crazy,” Touka says.

“No it isn’t. But, like, there are humans who know. And believe in you. That’s nice.” Yoriko’s eyes go thoughtful. “We should start a club.”

_ We should start a club _ . Of all the ways Touka had thought Yoriko could react to the revelation of her secret, this is by far the best of them. She starts to laugh.

Yoriko laughs too. “What’s funny?” she asks. “Why are we laughing?”

“You,” Touka says. “You’re wonderful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERe. Oh boy. oh . boy.
> 
> this fic nearly killed me tbh. i changed the ending So Many Times ... honestly i don't think that i had the skill to write a fic like this when i started out. i had so much trouble. but over the course of writing it i got better, and Finally i figured it out. thanks for being patient!! to everyone who stuck with me throughout the Wow Almost A Whole Year that it took to write this, you're wonderful. your support & response has been amazing.


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